Economy & Market

Gunning for lower downtime

Published

8 years ago

August 31, 2018

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For minimising downtime, techniques like gunning and shotcreting are being adopted, instead of using pre-fired bricks in refractories.

Portland cement manufacturing is an energy intensive operation, and a refractory lining that can withstand high temperatures, alkalinity and corrosive conditions is absolutely essential.

Refractories play a critical role in both the rotary kiln lining, and the lining of the high volume static equipment areas that comprise a modern pre-calciner kiln system. The refractory kiln process involves pyro-processing of raw material, and extremely high temperature in rotary kilns. Often the kiln feeds are alkaline in nature, generate corrosive reactants. Hence the importance of refractories with strong resistance to such characteristics and having robust thermal efficiencies in cement manufacturing. ‘After two years of depressed market, currently refractory market has stabilised a bit and it seems that recovery is underway in 2018,’ says Ish Mohan Garg, Managing Director, Calderys.

While iron and steel industry is the major consumer of refractories with 65-75 per cent share, cement is the second major consumer of the equipment with 10-15 per cent share of total refractory consumed, followed by glass, non-ferrous metals, petrochemicals and hydrocarbons, which also involve high temperature processes.

Imports
About 30 per cent of refractories consumed in India is imported, mostly from China. ‘The primary driver for these imports is the abundant availability of raw material there, especially magnesite. To that extent, we cannot wish away the role of China and this is also the reason why refractory companies have set up plants in China,’ says Sameer Nagpal, CEO, Dalmia-OCL. However, the recent raw material crisis in China provides immense opportunity for India to bolster its domestic refractory industry by allowing it to source and secure raw materials from other countries with zero import duty.

But, certain policy anomalies have to be corrected to achieve this, says Garg. ‘Refractory is essentially a "Make in India" business model where we import raw materials and create value-added products in India. But while import duty on raw material is 5 per cent, that on finished product is 2.5 per cent. This import duty has to be increased to encourage domestic manufacturing activity.’

With India becoming the world’s second largest steel and cement producer, it should also be a leading refractory producer to support these industries. ‘Indian companies have the wherewithal to emerge as a globally competitive player and we are actively pursuing this direction. We are looking at acquisitions in Europe that can help us build scale and access latest technologies,’ says Nagpal.

‘Due to its low-cost and highly skilled workforce, India is a competitive market for refractory manufacturing and is also a sourcing base for Americas and Europe,’ Nagpal adds. Dalmia-OCL has a network spread across different countries and exports constitute 15 per cent of its revenue.

However, Garg differs on competitiveness of the Indian refractory industry. ‘Raw materials being 60-70 per cent of the total cost of refractory makes it difficult for Indian refractory industry to become globally competitive, due to sheer dependence of Indian manufacturers on imported raw materials. As a country, our ability to tap into global/ regional market is very much restricted,’ he points out.

Technology
As cement demand picks up and capacity utilisation goes up, cement manufacturers may want to minimise the downtime for replacing refractory lining. ‘This is giving rise to demand for higher performing bricks with higher life and shorter application time. Techniques like gunning and shotcreting using monolithic refractory, which is in powder form and takes shape after being applied, instead of using pre-fired bricks, is also gaining currency,’ says Nagpal.

Dalmia-OCL has formed a joint venture with a leading European refractory company for bringing to India the latest in gunning and shotcreting products, and is setting up the most modern monolithic plant in Katni, Madhya Pradesh.

Also, Indian cement makers use a lot of alternative fuels, which puts tremendous thermochemical pressure on refractory. Hence second or third generation spinels, hybrid refractories are coming up to take care of the increased thermochemical loads. Another trend is the effort towards reduction of thermal losses by introducing energy-saving refractories. New concepts are also coming up on thermal insulation of pyro system.

In the past, the major focus had been on the kiln performance, primarily productivity but with stricter environmental norm there has been major shift on the cement kiln system refractories too. ‘Well known hexavalent chrome problem associated with Mag Chrome refractories has made them unusable in cement kiln. In the kiln burning zone, Mag Chrome bricks have been substituted by wide range of alternate spinel products, e.g. MagAl, Hercenyte and others like zirconia containing magnesia, etc.,’ says Garg of Calderys.

Ammonia injection, once stricter NOx and SOx norms is implemented, would put significantly more stress on the refractory in the cement kiln system. Refractory manufacturers need to gear up for these upcoming regulatory norms.

Cement kilns in India are virtually being used as incinerator, where pharma and municipal wastes are common feed as fuel. This obviously has changed the kiln operating environment. This has resulted in increased coating build in kiln inlet as well as Spurrite ring formation within the kiln. On many occasions, the clinker is dustier compared to the past. ‘These changes obviously have called for refractories with different features. Incorporation of the requisite features has turned out to be much easier in monolithic, primarily castables, compared to bricks. Against this backdrop, castable in kiln inlet, tip casting, bull nose and cooler bench has become a standard practice. With the advent of shotcrete installation process, for identical castable formulations, faster installation extension of refractory life, by repair, has been possible,’ says Garg.

Boost domestic manufacturing
While emphasising the need to boost local refractory manufacturing, Nagpal of Dalmia-OCL suggested reduction of duties on raw material import; enabling mining policies for minor minerals like bauxite, quartzite, magnesite, etc., which are critical refractory raw materials, to reduce dependence on external sources; and support to refractory and ceramics R&D to boost local innovation, for this purpose.

The primary support from government should be on the following three fronts – ‘technology development, developing young talent and sustainability,’ says Garg of Calderys.

On behalf of IRMA, Calderys has set up Centre of Excellence at IIT BHU aimed at technological advances for making industry globally competitive. ‘We need to accelerate such advances in multiple Institute of repute,’ Garg adds.

For decades, the industry has been dumping used refractory in landfills, however, more sustainable way is to extract key raw materials from the same, use it again for refractory. ‘We trust Government should work with user industry to enable reverse supply chain of used refractory,’ says Garg.

-BS SRINIVASALU REDDY

Economy & Market

TSR Will Define Which Cement Companies Win India’s Net-Zero Race

Published

4 days ago

April 27, 2026

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Jignesh Kundaria, Director and CEO, Fornnax Technology

India is simultaneously grappling with two crises: a mounting waste emergency and an urgent need to decarbonise its most carbon-intensive industries. The cement sector, the second-largest in the world and the backbone of the nation’s infrastructure ambitions, sits at the centre of both. It consumes enormous quantities of fossil fuel, and it has the technical capacity to consume something else entirely: the waste our cities cannot get rid of.

According to CPCB and NITI Aayog projections, India generates approximately 62.4 million tonnes of municipal solid waste annually, with that figure expected to reach 165 million tonnes by 2030. Much of this waste is energy-rich and non-recyclable. At the same time, cement kilns operate at material temperatures of approximately 1,450 degrees Celsius, with gas temperatures reaching 2,000 degrees. This high-temperature environment is ideal for co-processing, ensuring the complete thermal destruction of organic compounds without generating toxic residues. The physics are in our favour. The infrastructure is not.

Pre-processing is not the support act for co-processing. It is the main event. Get the particle size wrong, get the moisture wrong, get the calorific value wrong and your kiln thermal stability will suffer the consequences.

The Regulatory Push Is Real

The Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules 2026 mandate that cement plants progressively replace solid fossil fuels with Refuse-Derived Fuel (RDF), starting at a 5 per cent baseline and scaling to 15 per cent within six years. NITI Aayog’s 2026 Roadmap for Cement Sector Decarbonisation targets 20 to 25 per cent Thermal Substitution Rate (TSR) by 2030. Beyond compliance, every tonne of coal replaced by RDF generates measurable carbon reductions which is monetisable under India’s emerging Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS). TSR is no longer a sustainability metric. It is a financial lever.

Yet our own field assessments across multiple Indian cement plants reveal a sobering reality: the primary barrier to scaling AFR adoption is not waste availability. It is the fragmented and under-engineered pre-processing ecosystem that sits between the waste and the kiln.

Why Indian Waste Is a Different Engineering Problem

Indian municipal solid waste is not the material that imported shredding equipment was designed for. Our waste streams frequently exceed 40 per cent to 50 per cent moisture content, particularly during monsoon cycles, saturated with abrasive inerts including sand, glass, and stone. Plants relying on imported OEM equipment face months of downtime awaiting proprietary spare parts. Machines built for segregated, low-moisture waste fail quickly and disrupt the entire pre-processing operation in Indian conditions.

The two most common failures we observe are what I call the biting teeth problem and the chewing teeth problem. Plants relying solely on a primary shredder reduce bulk waste to large fractions, but the output remains too coarse for stable kiln combustion. Others attempt to use a secondary shredder as a standalone unit without a primary stage to pre-size the feed, leading to catastrophic mechanical failure. When both stages are present but mismatched in throughput capacity, the system becomes a bottleneck. Achieving the 40 to 70 tonnes per hour required for meaningful coal displacement demands a precisely coordinated two-stage process.

Engineering a Made-in-India Answer

At Fornnax, our response to these challenges is grounded in one principle: Indian waste demands Indian engineering. Our systems are built around feedstock homogeneity, the holy grail of kiln stability. Consistent particle size and predictable calorific value are the foundation of stable kiln combustion. Without them, no TSR target is achievable at scale.

Our SR-MAX2500 Dual Shaft Primary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive) processes raw, baled, or loosely mixed MSW, C&I waste, bulky waste, and plastics, reducing them to approximately 150 mm fractions at throughputs of up to 40 tonnes per hour. The R-MAX 3300 Single Shaft Secondary Shredder (Hydraulic Drive), introduced in 2025, takes that primary output and produces RDF fractions in the 30 to 80 mm range at up to 30 tonnes per hour, specifically optimised for consistent kiln feeding. We have also introduced electric drive configurations under the SR-100 HD series, with capacities between 5 and 40 tonnes per hour, already operational at a leading Indian waste-processing facility.

Looking ahead, Fornnax is expanding its portfolio with the upcoming SR-MAX3600 Hydraulic Drive primary shredder at up to 70 tonnes per hour and the R-MAX2100 Hydraulic drive secondary shredder at up to 20 tonnes per hour, designed specifically for the large-scale throughput that higher TSR ambitions require.

The Investment Case Is Now

The 2070 Net-Zero target is not a distant goal for India’s cement sector. It starts today, with decisions being made on the plant floor.

The SWM Rules 2026 are already in effect, requiring cement plants to replace coal with RDF. Carbon credit markets are opening up, and coal prices are not going to get cheaper. Every tonne of coal a cement plant replaces with waste-derived fuel saves money on one side and generates carbon credit revenue on the other. Pre-processing infrastructure is no longer just a compliance requirement. It is a business investment with a measurable return.

The good news is that nothing is missing. The technology works. The waste is available in every Indian city. The government has provided the policy direction. The only thing standing between where the industry is today and where it needs to be is the commitment to build the right infrastructure.

The cement companies that move now will not just meet the regulations. They will be ahead of every competitor that waits.

About The Author

Jignesh Kundaria is the Director and CEO of Fornnax Technology. Over an experience spanning more than two decades in the recycling industry, he has established himself as one of India’s foremost voices on waste-to-fuel technology and alternative fuel infrastructure.

Concrete

WCA Welcomes SiloConnect as associate corporate member

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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The World Cement Association (WCA) has announced SiloConnect as its newest associate corporate member, expanding its network of technology providers supporting digitalisation in the cement industry. SiloConnect offers smart sensor technology that provides real-time visibility of cement inventory levels at customer silos, enabling producers to monitor stock remotely and plan deliveries more efficiently. The solution helps companies move from reactive to proactive logistics, improving delivery planning, operational efficiency and safety by reducing manual inspections. The technology is already used by major cement producers such as Holcim, Cemex and Heidelberg Materials and is deployed across more than 30 countries worldwide.

Concrete

TotalEnergies and Holcim Launch Floating Solar Plant in Belgium

Published

3 weeks ago

April 13, 2026

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TotalEnergies and Holcim have commissioned a floating solar power plant in Obourg, Belgium, built on a rehabilitated former chalk quarry that has been converted into a lake. The project has a generation capacity of 31 MW and produces around 30 GWh of renewable electricity annually, which will be used to power Holcim’s nearby industrial operations. The project is currently the largest floating solar installation in Europe dedicated entirely to industrial self-consumption. To ensure minimal impact on the surrounding landscape, more than 700 metres of horizontal directional drilling were used to connect the solar installation to the electrical substation. The project reflects ongoing collaboration between the two companies to support industrial decarbonisation through renewable energy solutions and innovative infrastructure development.