Fuel consumption is a key topic in the cement industry given the numerous issues involved, including costs, availability and environmental concerns. Every cement plant must have a well-planned fuel programme to ensure reliable cement production or else risk revenue loss. Here, Sussan Pasuki, Senior Alternative Fuels Manager for HeidelbergCement, outlines HeidelbergCement’s alternative fuels strategy in view of the results of the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris and its upcoming acquisition of Italcementi.

The global demand for alternative fuels continues to increase and diversify. Cement companies are under increased scrutiny to deliver high quality products in a safe environment, while continuing to increase their efficiencies. The need to reduce kiln operating fuel costs therefore remain one of the largest goals for cement producers. Traditionally this has involved solid wastes, particularly from municipal sources. Here, however, Ted T Reese of Cadence Environmental Energy highlights the potential to use wastes from the oil refining industry as alternative fuels for cement production.

The cement industry has long been dependent on the use of fossil fuels, although a recent trend in replacing fossil fuels with alternative fuels has arisen.^{1, 2} However, when unconverted or partly converted alternative fuels are admitted directly in the rotary kiln inlet, the volatiles released from the fuels may react with sulphates present in the hot meal to form SO₂. Here Maria del Mar Cortada Mut and associates describe pilot and industrial scale experiments focusing on the factors that affect SO₂ release in the cement kiln inlet.

The Lafarge Mannersdorf cement plant in Mannersdorf, Austria, is one of two Lafarge facilities in the central European country. In this plant visit report, plant manager Dr Joseph Kitzweger provides a detailed run-down of the plant's history, production process, use of alternative fuels, environmental performance, products and distribution. Dr Kitzweger also gives his frank assessment of the Austrian cement market and his thoughts on the EU Emissions Trading scheme.

Oxygen-enrichment can lower production costs for many processes because fuel costs are continuously on the rise. Enrichment is used more and more frequently in combustion systems technologies like oxygen burners, oxygen lancing and other oxygen enrichment systems in order to raise productivity, save energy or enable the use of lower quality fuels. Messer Oxipyr® technologies are used to provide discrete oxygen-rich areas in furnaces to allow complete combustion of fuels or lowering of emission values. This article determines the possibilities for and the advantages of oxygen application in rotary kiln burners for cement clinker production based on Messer testing results and installations that include a unique way of atomising liquid waste fuels with oxygen.