ERP for Cement Industry – In Africa and around the world, more and more businesses in the manufacturing, construction and engineering industry are overcoming business challenges aided by technology. The cement manufacturing industry is one such industry.

In the past, cement manufacturers relied on the traditional Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems like SAP, Oracle etc. Not anymore. Smart businesses have discovered that Software as a Service (Saas) system provides more benefits. Cement manufacturing, an intricate area (like all assembling businesses), depends on a few pointers.

For example, the control of raw materials inventory, source of inventory items, opportune store network, price changes of produced items and a decent distribution network to to get the items to the market.

What is a full cement production process?

As we all know, there are two elements to affect the quality and efficiency of the cement production line: cement production process and cement equipment. Cement equipment refers to all equipment in the cement plant, such as cement mill, cement crusher, cement kiln, cement silo, cement preheater, etc.

Today we will focus on the cement production process analytics. What is the cement production process? The cement production process is also called the cement manufacturing process, cement making process, directly decide the cement equipment of cement production line, and investment and production scale.

In general, a full cement production process includes the stone crushing, raw mill process, clinker process, and cement grinding process, cement packing process, and related process. The Portland cement manufacturing process is representative of all types of cement.

Cement raw material preparation : Limestone is main raw materials for cement manufacturing, and most cement plants are located next to the quarry to reduce the transportation cost; Using explosion or getter loader to mine raw materials; sending raw materials to the cement crusher to crush or hammer; crushed raw materials are stored to prevent from environment and dusting. Raw meal : In the raw meal working site, the raw materials are processed by the raw mill to ensure the high-quality mixing; cement ball mill and cement vertical mill are generally used in the raw meal process; the finished raw meal are finally sent to the stacker and reclaimer for storage and further mixing. Clinker production : The diameter of the clinker ball must between 0.32 and 5.0cm. There are three steps of the high-temperature system: Drying or preheating, calcining, and sintering. The calcining is the core part of the clinker production; the raw meal is weighed and sent into preheater and cement kiln to process clinker.

Grate cooler helps to cooler clinker, the cooled clinker is sent to the cement silo for storage. After cooling, the clinker can be transported on the conveyor belt and can regenerate up to 30% of its heat. Cooling air from the clinker is fed into the rotary kiln, which is conducive to fuel combustion.

Clinker storage capacity can be based on the market, and a cement plant usually stores 5-25% of the annual clinker production. Cement grinding : The clinker is taken from the clinker silo and sent to the feed bin where it is mixed with gypsum and additives before entering the cement grinding plant, In the cement grinding process, the clinker is ground to a fine powder along with other materials, up to 5% gypsum or additional anhydrite is added to control the solidification time of the cement, and other compounds are added, such as compounds used to regulate fluidity or gas content. Cement packing and shipping : Finished cement will be stored in the cement silo, and the cement packing plant will help to bag it as requested. Cement can be delivered in bulk to the customer in trucks or wagons, or bagged and delivered in standard lorries.

What is the most common type of cement used in construction?

FAQs on different types of Cement – ? What are the types of cement? Ordinary Portland cement (OPC), portland pozzolana cement (PPC), rapid hardening cement, quick-setting cement, low heat cement, sulfates resisting cement, blast furnace slag cement, high alumina cement, white cement, colored cement, air-entraining cement, expansive cement, and hydrographic cement.

? Which type of Portland cement is most commonly used? Ordinary Portland cement is most commonly used type of cement. ? What are the applications of ordinary Portland cement? Ordinary Portland cement is the most widely used type of cement, which is suitable for all general concrete construction. ? What are the applications of Portland pozzolana cement? It is used in marine structures, foundations, sewage works, sewage works, and for laying concrete underwater, such as bridges, piers, dams, and mass concrete works, etc.

? Where is hydrophobic cement used? It is used in the construction of dams, spillways, water tanks, water retaining structures, underwater constructions.

Why do we need a dust control system for cement production?

Dust is the main pollutant from the cement industry. Many links in the cement production process, such as raw material crushing, raw meal grinding, clinker calcination, cement grinding, etc., have different degrees of dust spillover. Among them, the clinker calcination stage has the most serious dust emission degree, accounting for more than 70% of the total dust emission of the cement plant.

What is the market for cement used for?

Introduction – Cement is a global commodity, manufactured at thousands of plants. The industry is consolidating globally, but large international firms account for only 30% of the worldwide market (European Commission, 1997). The principal and most visible market for cement is the construction industry in a multitude of applications where it is combined with water to make concrete.

• Manufacturing industries in general account for one-third of global energy use.
• Direct industrial energy and process CO2 emissions amount to 6.7 gigatonnes (Gt), about 25% of total worldwide emissions, of which 30% comes from the iron and steel industry, 27% from non-metallic minerals (mainly cement) and 16% from chemicals and petrochemicals production (IEA, 2008).

Cement production involves the heating, calcining and sintering of blended and ground materials to form clicker. As a result, cement manufacturing is the third largest cause of man-made CO2 emissions due to the production of lime, the key ingredient in cement.

• Therefore, energy savings during cement production could lead to lower environmental impact.
• In the cement/concrete industry improvement of energy efficiency and reduction of CO2 emissions could be mainly achieved through two procedures: (i) by changes in the manufacturing and production processes, and (ii) by adjusting the chemical composition of cement.

Manufacturing and production processes can be improved by changing energy management and by investing in new equipment and/or upgrades. Changes in the chemical formulation of cement have been demonstrated to save energy and reduce CO2 emissions, but their widespread adoption has thus far been hampered by the fact that developing a new industrial standard is complex and requires time.

• This holds in particular for the cement industry which is a highly capital intensive and competitive sector with long economic lifetimes of existing facilities so that changes in the existing capital stock cannot easily be made.
• The largest opportunities for improving energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions can be achieved by improving the cement manufacturing process.

In the cement industry pyroprocessing (processing the raw material into cement under a high temperature, e.g., above 8000C) is a very common technological procedure, which accounts for 74% of the energy consumption in global cement/concrete industries.

• Since the thermal efficiency through the use of this conventional technology of pyroprocessing is slightly higher than 30% on average (Mersmann, 2007), there could be considerable scope for improvements.
• Grinding and milling account for 5.8% of cement/concrete energy consumption (Choate, 2003).
• These operations have an energy efficiency ranging from 6 to 25% and also offer a large opportunity for energy saving.

The following figure presents the cement production process. The potential opportunities for improving energy efficiency and lower CO2 emissions in raw material generation and production of concrete are smaller than in cement manufacturing. For instance, CO2 emissions during transport could be reduced by replacing diesel fuel with biodiesel.

Normally, energy efficiency improvements proportionally reduce the emissions of CO2 generated from fossil fuel combustion and electricity generation. However, it should be noted that reducing CO2 emissions from cement manufacturing by a percentage proportional to energy efficiency improvements is not possible.

More than half of the CO2 emissions associated with cement/concrete are a result of the chemical reactions necessary for converting raw materials and not a result of the energy required to produce these reactions. For example, if a near-zero CO2 emitting fuel (e.g.

Nuclear energy, biomass) were utilised for all pyroprocessing energy needs, then CO2 emissions could be reduced by 54%. Another way to reduce emissions is to substitute fossil fuels with waste or biomass. Cement kilns are well suited for waste-combustion because of their high process temperature and because the clinker product and limestone feedstock act as gascleaning agents.

Used tyres, wood, plastics, chemicals and other types of waste are co-combusted in cement kilns in large quantities. Plants in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland have reached average substitution rates of from 35% to more than 70%.

• Some individual plants have even achieved 100% substitution using appropriate waste materials.
• However, very high substitution rates can only be accomplished if a tailored pre-treatment and surveillance system is in place.
• Municipal solid waste, for example, needs to be pre-treated to obtain homogeneous calorific values and feed characteristics.

The cement industry in the United States burns 53 million used tyres per year, which is 41% of all tyres that are burnt and is equivalent to 0.39 Mt or 15 PJ. About 50 million tyres, or 20% of the total, are still used as landfill. Another potential source of energy is carpets: the equivalent of about 100 PJ per year are dumped in landfills – these could instead be burnt in cement kilns.

Although these alternative materials are widely used, their use is still controversial, as cement kilns are not subject to the same tight emission controls as waste-incineration installations. According to IEA statistics, the cement industry in OECD countries used 1.6 Mtoe of combustible renewables and waste in 2005, half of it industrial waste and half wood waste (Taylor, 2006).

Worldwide, the sector consumed 2.7 Mtoe of biomass and 0.8 Mtoe of waste. This equals less than 2% of total fuel use in this sector. From a technical perspective, the use of alternative fuels could be raised to 24 Mtoe to 48 Mtoe, although there would be differences among regions due to the varying availability of such fuels.

This would yield CO2 reductions in the range of 100 Mt to 200 Mt a year. Yet another way to reduce energy and process emissions in cement production is to blend cements with increased proportions of alternative (non-clinker) feedstocks, such as volcanic ash, granulated blast furnace slag from iron production, or fly ash from coal-fired power generation.

The use of such blended cements varies widely from country to country. It is high in continental Europe, but low in the United States and the United Kingdom. In the United States and in China, other clinker substitutes are added directly at the concrete-making stage.

What are the raw materials used in cement production?

Map – Key

00. Limestone Quarry and Crushing plant 01. Limestone Stockpile 02. Additives Hopper 03. Additives Storage 04. Raw Mill Building 05. Blending and Storage Silo 06. Preheater 07. Gas Conditioning Tower and ESP 08. Kiln 09. Cooler 10. Deep Bucket Conveyor 11/12. Clinker/Gypsum Storage 13. Coal Mill Building 14. Cement Mill and Bag House 15. Cement Storage Silo 16. Packing & Dispatch 17. Central Control Room

00 Limestone Quarry and Crushing Plant The major raw material for cement production is limestone. The limestone most suitable for cement production must have some ingredients in specified quantities i.e., calcium carbonates, silica, alumina, iron, etc.

Typically, cement plant locations are based upon the availability of good quality limestone in the vicinity. The quarrying operations are done by the cement producer using the open cast mining process. Quarrying is done through drilling and subsequently, using heavy earth moving equipment such as bulldozers, payloaders, and dumpers.

The quarried raw material is then transported to the cement plant, using mechanical conveying equipment such as ropeways or belt conveyors, or by vehicles like wagons and trucks. The quarried limestone is normally in the form of big boulders, ranging from a few inches to meters in size.

These varying sizes of limestone need to be crushed to a size of about 10 mm in order to be prepared for finish-grinding. There are mainly two types of crushers available for this purpose- compression type or impact type crushers. There are many types of compression type crushers such as jaw crusher, gyratory crusher, cone crusher, roll crusher.

The impact of technology is used in a hammer crusher/impact crusher. Crushing is done either in two stages or in a single stage. In the two-stage crushing system, a compression type crusher is used in the first stage for raw crushing, followed by impact/hammer crusher in the second stage.

In single-stage crushing, an impact-type crusher is used. The selection of the crusher depends mainly on the characteristics of the raw materials. This selection is further guided by the particle-size distribution requirements of the downstream equipment such as raw mills and lastly by financial considerations.01 Limestone Stock Pile The raw material is stored at either the quarry or at the plant.

Typically, circular or longitudinal stockpiles are used to store the material. A number of layers are stacked in circular or longitudinal piles and are reclaimed in transverse, cross-sectional slices. The stockpiles consist of separate layers/piles of different kinds of raw material.

This is used in segregating the raw material quality-wise. The required quantity of the various raw materials is thus easily extracted for use. The extraction of different qualities of raw material is monitored and controlled in order to maintain the desired composition of raw meal, suitable for feeding into the kiln.02 & 03 Additives Storage Hopper In order to get the required composition of raw material, certain additives such as iron ore, bauxite, laterite, quartzite, and fluorspar are added in the required quantities.

These additives are stored at the plant in separate hoppers and are extracted using belt conveyors in conjunction with belt-weighing equipment. This ensures that only the required quantities are extracted and added to the raw material.04 Raw Mill Building The raw material is finish-ground before being fed into the kiln for clinkering.

• This grinding is done using either ball mills or vertical roller mills (VRM).
• The raw material is simultaneously dried.
• Ball mills use impact with attrition principles for grinding the raw material.
• Inside the ball mills, various sizes of balls are used and classifying liners are used to maintain the position of different sizes of balls.

The larger sized balls are utilized for impact grinding and the smaller balls for attrition. VRM uses the compression principle to grind the raw material. The choice between a ball mill and VRM is governed by many factors such as the moisture content of the raw material, the size of the plant, the abrasiveness of the material, the energy consumption levels, reliability, and finally financial considerations.

Ball mills are suitable for low and medium moisture content in the range of five to six percent and are preferred for abrasive material. The main advantage of VRM is higher grinding efficiency and the ability to accept material with higher moisture content. Normally the energy consumption level in VRM is 10 to 20 percent lower than in ball mills.05 Blending and Storage Silo Normally there are various sources of limestone, each with different qualities, which are added with various additives to get the required composition of raw mix.

As there are various sources of raw materials, it becomes necessary to blend and homogenize these different materials efficiently to counteract fluctuation in the chemical composition of the raw meal. The variations in the composition of kiln feed have very adverse impacts on the efficiency of the kiln.

It results in undesired coating and ring formation inside the kiln. In order to blend and homogenize the raw materials properly, continuous blending silos are used.06 Preheater The most important activity in cement manufacturing is clinkering (or burning) of raw material. Clinkering takes place in the kiln and the preheater system.

Preheater systems offer heat transfer from the hot kiln gases.07 Gas Conditioning Tower and ESP The conditioning tower is used to reduce the temperature and to increase the moisture level of the dusty exhaust gas from the kiln, before it is passed through the baghouse and ESPs.

• It is called a conditioning tower because it conditions the hot gas, thus making it more suitable for the ESP and baghouse to extract dust from it.
• Electrostatic Precipitators are used in cement plants particularly for removal of dust from the exit gases of cement kilns and from the exhaust air discharged by dryers, combined grinding and drying plants, finishing mills, and raw mills through water injection.

Through ESPs, the dust-laden gas is made to flow through a chamber usually horizontally, during which it passes through one or more high voltage electric fields formed by alternate discharge electrodes and plate type collecting electrodes. By the action of an electric field, the dust particles, which have become electrically charged by negative gas ions that are formed at the discharge electrodes and attach themselves to the particles, fly to the collecting electrodes and are deposited there.

The dust is dislodged from these electrodes by rapping and thus falls into the receiving hopper at the base of the precipitator casing.08 Kiln A kiln is the heart of any cement plant. It is basically a long cylindrical-shaped pipe and rotates in a horizontal position. Its internal surface is lined by refractory bricks.

Limestone and additives are calcined in this. The output of the kiln is called clinker.09 Cooler The clinker coming out of the kiln is hot. It is cooled in a set-up called a cooler. In the cooler, cold air is blown to effect heat exchange between hot clinker and cold air.10 Deep Bucket Conveyor The deep bucket conveyor is essentially an equipment to lift material vertically.11/12 Clinker/Gypsum Storage The output of the kiln is stored before it is fed to the cement mill for conversion to cement.

1. This storage is called clinker storage, if it is used for clinker storage purpose.
2. If the storage space is used for gypsum storage, it is called gypsum storage.
3. The storage may be of silo type or covered stacker reclaimer type or simply a gantry type.
4. Silo type clinker storage has the advantage that there is no dust pollution and spillage of clinker.

The same advantage can be achieved through the stacker reclaimer type as well. However, there is a little bit of dust generated. Gantry type is not used in modern cement plants because of its environmental unfriendly nature.12 Gypsum Storage The output of the kiln is stored before it is fed to the cement mill for conversion to into cement.

This storage is called clinker storage, if it is used for clinker storage purpose. If the storage space is used for gypsum storage, it is called gypsum storage. The storage may be of silo type or covered stacker reclaimer type or simply a gantry type. Silo type clinker storage has the advantage that there is no dust pollution and spillage of clinker.

The same advantage can be achieved through stacker reclaimer type as well However, there is a little bit of dust generated. Gantry type is not used in modern cement plants because of its environmental unfriendly nature. Limestone coming out of the quarry is crushed in multiple stages in a sizing plant before it is put in limestone stockpile.

• Crusher are mainly of two types viz.
• Jaw crusher and Hammer crusher.
• Jaw crusher is basically a simple mechanism having two plates one fixed and another moving.
• This is also called primary crusher.
• Hammer crusher has got metallic hammer mounted on the axes and the sizing achieved by the impact of the hammer.13 Coal Mill Building The coal mill building houses the mill for grinding lumpy coals.

This fine ground coal is used for burning in the kiln. The mills used for coal grinding and drying are either trumbling mills (tube mills) or roller mills.14 Cement Mill and Bag House Clinker, along with additives, is ground in a cement mill. The output of a cement mill is the final product viz.

Cement. In a cement mill, there is a cylindrical shell lying horizontal which contains metallic balls and as it rotates, the crushing action of the balls helps in grinding the clinker to a fine powder. The term baghouse is applied to large filters containing a number of tubular bags mounted in a usually rectangular casing.

The dust-laden air is drawn through them by suction. The baghouse is used to remove dusty particles from discharge of different equipment such as cement mill, coal mill, and kiln. In a baghouse system discharge gas containing dusty particles is passed through a series of bags made of strong fabrics.15 Cement Storage Silo The cement storage silo is used for storing the finished product – cement.16 Packing and Dispatch The cement is packed with the help of a rotary packer and finally dispatched to the market 17 Central Control Room It is the nerve center of the cement plant since all equipment is controlled from this place.

What is cement production process?

As we all know, there are two elements to affect the quality and efficiency of the cement production line: cement production process and cement equipment. Cement equipment refers to all equipment in the cement plant, such as cement mill, cement crusher, cement kiln, cement silo, cement preheater, etc.

Today we will focus on the cement production process analytics. What is the cement production process? The cement production process is also called the cement manufacturing process, cement making process, directly decide the cement equipment of cement production line, and investment and production scale.

In general, a full cement production process includes the stone crushing, raw mill process, clinker process, and cement grinding process, cement packing process, and related process. The Portland cement manufacturing process is representative of all types of cement.

Cement raw material preparation : Limestone is main raw materials for cement manufacturing, and most cement plants are located next to the quarry to reduce the transportation cost; Using explosion or getter loader to mine raw materials; sending raw materials to the cement crusher to crush or hammer; crushed raw materials are stored to prevent from environment and dusting. Raw meal : In the raw meal working site, the raw materials are processed by the raw mill to ensure the high-quality mixing; cement ball mill and cement vertical mill are generally used in the raw meal process; the finished raw meal are finally sent to the stacker and reclaimer for storage and further mixing. Clinker production : The diameter of the clinker ball must between 0.32 and 5.0cm. There are three steps of the high-temperature system: Drying or preheating, calcining, and sintering. The calcining is the core part of the clinker production; the raw meal is weighed and sent into preheater and cement kiln to process clinker.
• Grate cooler helps to cooler clinker, the cooled clinker is sent to the cement silo for storage.
• After cooling, the clinker can be transported on the conveyor belt and can regenerate up to 30% of its heat.
• Cooling air from the clinker is fed into the rotary kiln, which is conducive to fuel combustion.

Clinker storage capacity can be based on the market, and a cement plant usually stores 5-25% of the annual clinker production. Cement grinding : The clinker is taken from the clinker silo and sent to the feed bin where it is mixed with gypsum and additives before entering the cement grinding plant, In the cement grinding process, the clinker is ground to a fine powder along with other materials, up to 5% gypsum or additional anhydrite is added to control the solidification time of the cement, and other compounds are added, such as compounds used to regulate fluidity or gas content. Cement packing and shipping : Finished cement will be stored in the cement silo, and the cement packing plant will help to bag it as requested. Cement can be delivered in bulk to the customer in trucks or wagons, or bagged and delivered in standard lorries.

What are the main activities in cement manufacturing?

Map – Key

00. Limestone Quarry and Crushing plant 01. Limestone Stockpile 02. Additives Hopper 03. Additives Storage 04. Raw Mill Building 05. Blending and Storage Silo 06. Preheater 07. Gas Conditioning Tower and ESP 08. Kiln 09. Cooler 10. Deep Bucket Conveyor 11/12. Clinker/Gypsum Storage 13. Coal Mill Building 14. Cement Mill and Bag House 15. Cement Storage Silo 16. Packing & Dispatch 17. Central Control Room

00 Limestone Quarry and Crushing Plant The major raw material for cement production is limestone. The limestone most suitable for cement production must have some ingredients in specified quantities i.e., calcium carbonates, silica, alumina, iron, etc.

1. Typically, cement plant locations are based upon the availability of good quality limestone in the vicinity.
2. The quarrying operations are done by the cement producer using the open cast mining process.
3. Quarrying is done through drilling and subsequently, using heavy earth moving equipment such as bulldozers, payloaders, and dumpers.

The quarried raw material is then transported to the cement plant, using mechanical conveying equipment such as ropeways or belt conveyors, or by vehicles like wagons and trucks. The quarried limestone is normally in the form of big boulders, ranging from a few inches to meters in size.

These varying sizes of limestone need to be crushed to a size of about 10 mm in order to be prepared for finish-grinding. There are mainly two types of crushers available for this purpose- compression type or impact type crushers. There are many types of compression type crushers such as jaw crusher, gyratory crusher, cone crusher, roll crusher.

The impact of technology is used in a hammer crusher/impact crusher. Crushing is done either in two stages or in a single stage. In the two-stage crushing system, a compression type crusher is used in the first stage for raw crushing, followed by impact/hammer crusher in the second stage.

• In single-stage crushing, an impact-type crusher is used.
• The selection of the crusher depends mainly on the characteristics of the raw materials.
• This selection is further guided by the particle-size distribution requirements of the downstream equipment such as raw mills and lastly by financial considerations.01 Limestone Stock Pile The raw material is stored at either the quarry or at the plant.

Typically, circular or longitudinal stockpiles are used to store the material. A number of layers are stacked in circular or longitudinal piles and are reclaimed in transverse, cross-sectional slices. The stockpiles consist of separate layers/piles of different kinds of raw material.

This is used in segregating the raw material quality-wise. The required quantity of the various raw materials is thus easily extracted for use. The extraction of different qualities of raw material is monitored and controlled in order to maintain the desired composition of raw meal, suitable for feeding into the kiln.02 & 03 Additives Storage Hopper In order to get the required composition of raw material, certain additives such as iron ore, bauxite, laterite, quartzite, and fluorspar are added in the required quantities.

These additives are stored at the plant in separate hoppers and are extracted using belt conveyors in conjunction with belt-weighing equipment. This ensures that only the required quantities are extracted and added to the raw material.04 Raw Mill Building The raw material is finish-ground before being fed into the kiln for clinkering.

• This grinding is done using either ball mills or vertical roller mills (VRM).
• The raw material is simultaneously dried.
• Ball mills use impact with attrition principles for grinding the raw material.
• Inside the ball mills, various sizes of balls are used and classifying liners are used to maintain the position of different sizes of balls.

The larger sized balls are utilized for impact grinding and the smaller balls for attrition. VRM uses the compression principle to grind the raw material. The choice between a ball mill and VRM is governed by many factors such as the moisture content of the raw material, the size of the plant, the abrasiveness of the material, the energy consumption levels, reliability, and finally financial considerations.

1. Ball mills are suitable for low and medium moisture content in the range of five to six percent and are preferred for abrasive material.
2. The main advantage of VRM is higher grinding efficiency and the ability to accept material with higher moisture content.
3. Normally the energy consumption level in VRM is 10 to 20 percent lower than in ball mills.05 Blending and Storage Silo Normally there are various sources of limestone, each with different qualities, which are added with various additives to get the required composition of raw mix.

As there are various sources of raw materials, it becomes necessary to blend and homogenize these different materials efficiently to counteract fluctuation in the chemical composition of the raw meal. The variations in the composition of kiln feed have very adverse impacts on the efficiency of the kiln.

1. It results in undesired coating and ring formation inside the kiln.
2. In order to blend and homogenize the raw materials properly, continuous blending silos are used.06 Preheater The most important activity in cement manufacturing is clinkering (or burning) of raw material.
3. Clinkering takes place in the kiln and the preheater system.

Preheater systems offer heat transfer from the hot kiln gases.07 Gas Conditioning Tower and ESP The conditioning tower is used to reduce the temperature and to increase the moisture level of the dusty exhaust gas from the kiln, before it is passed through the baghouse and ESPs.

It is called a conditioning tower because it conditions the hot gas, thus making it more suitable for the ESP and baghouse to extract dust from it. Electrostatic Precipitators are used in cement plants particularly for removal of dust from the exit gases of cement kilns and from the exhaust air discharged by dryers, combined grinding and drying plants, finishing mills, and raw mills through water injection.

Through ESPs, the dust-laden gas is made to flow through a chamber usually horizontally, during which it passes through one or more high voltage electric fields formed by alternate discharge electrodes and plate type collecting electrodes. By the action of an electric field, the dust particles, which have become electrically charged by negative gas ions that are formed at the discharge electrodes and attach themselves to the particles, fly to the collecting electrodes and are deposited there.

1. The dust is dislodged from these electrodes by rapping and thus falls into the receiving hopper at the base of the precipitator casing.08 Kiln A kiln is the heart of any cement plant.
2. It is basically a long cylindrical-shaped pipe and rotates in a horizontal position.
3. Its internal surface is lined by refractory bricks.

Limestone and additives are calcined in this. The output of the kiln is called clinker.09 Cooler The clinker coming out of the kiln is hot. It is cooled in a set-up called a cooler. In the cooler, cold air is blown to effect heat exchange between hot clinker and cold air.10 Deep Bucket Conveyor The deep bucket conveyor is essentially an equipment to lift material vertically.11/12 Clinker/Gypsum Storage The output of the kiln is stored before it is fed to the cement mill for conversion to cement.

• This storage is called clinker storage, if it is used for clinker storage purpose.
• If the storage space is used for gypsum storage, it is called gypsum storage.
• The storage may be of silo type or covered stacker reclaimer type or simply a gantry type.
• Silo type clinker storage has the advantage that there is no dust pollution and spillage of clinker.

The same advantage can be achieved through the stacker reclaimer type as well. However, there is a little bit of dust generated. Gantry type is not used in modern cement plants because of its environmental unfriendly nature.12 Gypsum Storage The output of the kiln is stored before it is fed to the cement mill for conversion to into cement.

• This storage is called clinker storage, if it is used for clinker storage purpose.
• If the storage space is used for gypsum storage, it is called gypsum storage.
• The storage may be of silo type or covered stacker reclaimer type or simply a gantry type.
• Silo type clinker storage has the advantage that there is no dust pollution and spillage of clinker.

The same advantage can be achieved through stacker reclaimer type as well However, there is a little bit of dust generated. Gantry type is not used in modern cement plants because of its environmental unfriendly nature. Limestone coming out of the quarry is crushed in multiple stages in a sizing plant before it is put in limestone stockpile.

1. Crusher are mainly of two types viz.
2. Jaw crusher and Hammer crusher.
3. Jaw crusher is basically a simple mechanism having two plates one fixed and another moving.
4. This is also called primary crusher.
5. Hammer crusher has got metallic hammer mounted on the axes and the sizing achieved by the impact of the hammer.13 Coal Mill Building The coal mill building houses the mill for grinding lumpy coals.

This fine ground coal is used for burning in the kiln. The mills used for coal grinding and drying are either trumbling mills (tube mills) or roller mills.14 Cement Mill and Bag House Clinker, along with additives, is ground in a cement mill. The output of a cement mill is the final product viz.

• Cement. In a cement mill, there is a cylindrical shell lying horizontal which contains metallic balls and as it rotates, the crushing action of the balls helps in grinding the clinker to a fine powder.
• The term baghouse is applied to large filters containing a number of tubular bags mounted in a usually rectangular casing.

The dust-laden air is drawn through them by suction. The baghouse is used to remove dusty particles from discharge of different equipment such as cement mill, coal mill, and kiln. In a baghouse system discharge gas containing dusty particles is passed through a series of bags made of strong fabrics.15 Cement Storage Silo The cement storage silo is used for storing the finished product – cement.16 Packing and Dispatch The cement is packed with the help of a rotary packer and finally dispatched to the market 17 Central Control Room It is the nerve center of the cement plant since all equipment is controlled from this place.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of dry process cement production?

Wet process of cement – The proportioned raw materials and water are ground into cement raw slurry, and sent into wet process kiln to calcine clinker. The semi-wet process of dehydrating raw slurry, making raw meal block, and then calcining in the kiln can also be classified as wet-process cement production.