Did you know low-pressure blowers are used in a wide variety of applications, including wastewater treatment, dairy industry, textiles, beverages, cement and many more. Here we provide a brief overview of kiln firing process which is one of the most critical in the cement manufacturing and how low-pressure screw blowers can optimize this process. Cement manufacturing uses low pressure technology for crucial applications like:
- Pneumatic conveying. Oil-free blower technology is used to transport cement through various points in the manufacturing processing, such as:
- Firing crushed coal into the kiln to maintain high temperature.
- Moving the cement onto trucks, bulk containers, railcars, and sea transportation for final transport.
- Aeration. Blowers are used to aerate the air cement silos, as well as to ensure that the raw material remains in motion.
- Homogenizing silo aerations
- Raw mill silo aeration
- Filter dust bin aeration
- Mixing bin aeration
- Fluidizing air
- Combustion air - feeding Oxygen to the fire.
During the complete cement manufacturing process, the critical activity is cement kiln. The kiln is a horizontal steel cylinder slightly tilted on an axis, heats the crushed raw meal mixture at extremely high temperatures – around 1480 deg C. As the materials tumble under gravity from the higher to the lower end of the kiln, certain materials are burned off as gases. The remaining elements melt together to form a material called “clinker”. This material - clinker is cooled as it exits the kiln and finally ground into an extremely fine powder ready to be transported to construction companies.
Challenges faced by cement industries in kiln process
The whole kiln process is highly energy-consuming and the improvement of kiln efficiency has been the main concern of any cement manufacturing company. The major challenges are:
- High power consumption in blower operations.
- High noise, high investment is to be made to reduce the blower noise.
- Frequent belt failure for lobe blowers.
- Performance tracking of blowers from central control room.
However, improvement in kiln efficiency can be made by selecting the right blower technology i.e screw blowers.
Advantages of screw blowers in kiln process
- Screw blowers are highly energy efficient and consume 30% less energy than a traditional tri-lobe blower.
- Silent operation
- Efficient power transmission throughout the life of the machine.
- Controller enabled screw blower can be connected for monitoring and controlling.
