The sixth CBC Congress of Brazil, co-hosted by Assoçiacão Brasileira de Cimento Portland (ABCP) and Sindicato Nacional Da Indústria Do Cimento (SNIC) was held in São Paulo, Brazil, on 19-21 May 2014. More than 300 industry experts attended the event and ICR reports on some of the conference’s main presentations.

The sixth CBC Congress brought together cement producers and equipment manufacturers from across the world

Yushiro Kihara, technical director of Assoçiacão Brasileira de Cimento Portland (ABCP), started proceedings with an overview of the Brazilian cement sector and its eco-efficiency. The domestic cement industry faces several key challenges, including the mitigation of greenhouse gases and the ramping up of secondary fuel use. Brazil’s cement companies also need to find alternative raw materials and be more open to technical innovations, according to Mr Kihara.

Philippe Fonta of the WBCSD/CSI looked at the cement industry’s responsibilities and challenges in terms of sustainability, considering the sector’s CO2 emissions and energy consumption. He spoke about the key levers in reducing CO2 emissions – energy efficiency, clinker substitution, alternative fuels and carbon capture and storage.

Vagner Maringolo, Cembureau’s speaker, followed this line of thought with his presentation on ‘Resource efficiency: underpinning European policies’, which highlighted the main drivers behind the creation of a low-carbon cement sector. He stressed the importance of enhanced resource use along the value chain, from raw material exploration, extraction and use, to re-use, recycling and recovery. Meanwhile, he explained that to develop a resource-efficient Europe, it must develop a policy mix that optimises synergies and trade-offs between four key areas, incorporating them in EU policies:
• climate change and energy
• sustainable use of natural resources
• circular economy
• biodiversity and ecosystem services.

PCA’s Gary Cohr updated the audience on the state-of-play in the USA

Highlighting the theme of energy efficiency, Marcos Fuscaldi of Schneider spoke about optimising energy use. He observed power demand in cement plants equated to 40 per cent of total energy cost, while fuel made up 60 per cent of total energy cost. Some 95 per cent of the energy consumed (electrical and thermal) is consumed between the crushing and clinker storage points. Energy optimisation enables plants to reduce energy costs per tonne of cement produced, lower carbon emissions and allows cement companies to comply with environmental regulations, said Mr Fuscaldi.
In his paper on innovation and progress in the cement industry, Martin Schneider of Germany’s cement association, VDZ, looked at the key areas of energy efficiency in employing waste heat technology, future grinding technologies, mercury and NOx abatement, carbon capture and new types of cement.

Sustainable cement production in Brazil

While key cement industry organisations are plotting the sustainability course for the years to come, Brazil’s cement producers are putting their strategies for sustainable cement production into practice.
Votorantim’s Edvaldo Araújo Rabelo began the third day presenting Votorantim Cimentos’ growth and sustainability strategy. He was followed by Mario Interlenghi and Carlos Roberto Moreira da Cunha, who looked at NOx emission reduction at Votorantim Cimentos’ Vidal Ramos cement plant in Brazil. The 1Mta five-stage preheater plant was inaugurated as recently as 2011. The new SNCR system has been optimised to improve the previously-low temperature of urea injection and also saw a repositioning of the urea injection points and modification of the cyclones.

Daniel Mattos of Lafarge Brazil spoke about his company’s commitment to sustainable development as reflected in its focus on the conservation of non-renewable conventional fuels, public health and emissions reduction. This has led the company to develop its co-processing activities. Group secondary fuel substitution levels are now at 17 per cent and emissions have tumbled from 0.767t CO2/t of cement in 1990 to 0.577t CO2/t of cement in 2013. In Brazil, Lafarge meets even more ambitious targets. Secondary fuel substitution levels are much higher at 44 per cent while its CO2 emissions are as low as 0.463t CO2/t of cement. Between 2005-13, Lafarge Brazil has co-processed 325,000t of industrial waste in addition to 50m old tyres. During this period, the company also used some 355,000t of alternative raw materials, further reducing its environmental impact.

There was also time for informal networking and

a toast to good business in Brazil (and elsewhere)

Dair Favaro Jr of Cia de Cimento Itambé spoke about Itambe’s environmental management and the company’s efforts to find alternatives to using traditional fuels and raw materials. He informed delegates that the co-processing operations at the company’s 2.8Mta Balsa Nova plant in Curitiba were taken over in August 2013 by business partner Rio Bonito, which is now responsible for customer prospecting and environmental permit handling. The cement producer operates a 120,000tpa waste processing facility which enables the company to use solid and liquid fuel alternatives as well as substitute some of its raw materials such as limestone and quartzite. In 2013, the company processed 63,000t of waste, 15,000t of petcoke and thermal substitution in Line 2 reached 18.48 per cent. The 2H15 will see the realisation of a BRL16m (US$7.2m) investment into a new solid waste fuel feeding system for kiln line 3. The company expects to lift co-processing volumes in Kiln 3 to 47,000tpa and reach a thermal substitution rate of 17 per cent. Furthermore, this will be followed by a BRL25m investment in new alternative raw material storage facilities and injection system in 2H18. It is expected that these latest investments will enable Itambé to increase co-processing volumes to 250,000tpa and help to reach thermal substitution rates in Kiln 3 and 2 of 45 and 21 per cent, respectively.
With a technical focus on equipment advances, Felipe Miguel Eusebio Apostolo and Silvanan A De Morais of Densit gave a valuable presentation on a new expert system for grinding at Ciplan’s Cement Mill III. Intelligent mill control was offered by MillExCS, replacing manual monitoring, which increased mill production and reduced energy consumption.

SCM advances

Sustainability and cementitious materials were major themes offered by John Vanderley from the University of São Paulo. He predicted that the availability of slag and fly ash could start to decrease after 2020, which will lessen their contribution to CO2 reduction in cement manufacture. Carbon storage is seen as the main way to mitigate further rises in CO2 emissions, while renewable fuels energy efficiency improvements and clinker substitution make up the rest of the solutions. Carbon capture though will cost roughly US$40-170/t of CO2 while the cost of cement is set to increase, an issue which is expected to affect developing countries in particular. Mr Vanderley’s solution is to increase binder efficiency with lower-reactive clinker, slag and pozzolans and a higher content of inert abundant materials in cement to make low binder concrete. By using particle packing, porosity is also reduced.

Allan Andersen of FLSmidth informed delegates about the flash calcination of clay to produce high-quality supplementary cementitious materials. The technology is expected to allow up to 50 per cent clinker substitution and avoids some of the issues currently experienced in synthetic pozzolan production.

Summary

The underlying conference themes of innovation in cement manufacturing, maintenance and modernisation, climate change and environmental control, plus standardisation of Portland cement and energy and fuel consumption were comprehensively covered during the three days of the conference. Attendees came from as far away as China and India, while there was also strong representation from Europe and Latin American countries, which helped make it a very successful event.

Article first published in International Cement Review, August 2014.