CEMCAP

Clinker cooling is an essential step in the cement clinker manufacturing process, as it influences the product quality as well as the energy efficiency of the process. In order to apply oxyfuel technology to the clinker burning process, the cooler has to be adapted in order to be operated under high CO₂ concentrations. Within the ECRA CCS project different designs have been developed by IKN to fulfil the task. Within the CEMCAP project one design was chosen to be operated on site under realistic conditions at HeidelbergCement's plant in Hannover, Germany.

For this purpose, part of the hot clinker from a running rotary kiln will be extracted and supplied to a 80 t/d cooler prototype. A set of different parameters such as different cooling gas compositions, mass and gas load, operating modes of the grate cooler (bed velocity) shall be investigated to evaluate the process reliability including the cooling curve and sealing efficiency. Clinker samples produced from the prototype will be characterised with regard to the mineralogical composition in order to evaluate the impact of the changed gas atmosphere and correspondingly the cooling rate on the clinker quality.

Involved partners are IKN, HeidelbergCement and VDZ.