Past few years cement companies have been aggressively targeting at reducing energy consumption. How do you look at this trend? Please explain which cooling technique is energy efficient and why?
The resistivity of cement dust reduces with lower gas temperature. There is always a debate between air dilution and gas cooling with water. Dilution with air entails bigger size downstream equipment like a fan, motor, bag house size, etc. The efficiency of gas cooling with water is fifteen times more efficient than cooling with dilution air. Hence, air dilution is a drain on energy consumption and proper water spray technological solution is required and available, for reducing the gas temperature and thereby its volume.
Most industries today use gas filtration techniques to reduce dust from cement, lime, steel, and other plants. Kindly throw some light on the latest gas filtration techniques for the cement industry.
India has done quite well in addressing the process of dust emissions from the industries, as mandated by the legislature. However, the fugitive dust levels are alarmingly high. The PM2.5 and PM 10 levels are quite high compared to the legislative values, which are affecting human health and well-being. Our technology of producing the required droplet size to encapsulate the dust particle and making it heavy to settle down is our main know-how.
Gas conditioning towers (GCT) are being used in the cement plants to cool down hot gases from kilns. But due to less space in plants, do you see it as a challenge? I
n most modern plants, the GCT is getting phased out due to space constraints. However, the required gas cooling is being done in the Preheater downcomer duct or top cyclone. We have excellent water spray technology for PH downcomer and for TOP cyclone of cement plants.
What are the trends in the cement industry when it comes to selecting the best gas cooling product. Cost is one of the biggest factors. What are the other factors?
Gas cooling by an efficient water spray system is the most efficient cooling method by the laws of physics. Lesser the gas temperature, the gas volumes to be handled are lower, thereby lowering the size of downstream equipment, energy requirements, and the cost of production. Hence, wherever air dilution is taking place in a cement plant, we should look at installing efficient water spray systems. Nowadays, we have spray technology that can handle rejecting water/waste water from cement processes for gas cooling.
How was the demand in the year 2020? Was your business affected too? What were your strategies to survive and compete in the market?
Air Pollution has no holiday. So, our products were in demand and we did manage to grow a bit in 2020. The pandemic made it difficult to offer our services at the customer?? place, which has been our SOP.
Our strategy is to offer tailor-made solutions to our customers??requirements. We have a fluid mechanics laboratory in which the dust characteristics are studied, before the selection of our technology for the best and sustainable results.
How do you foresee business in the year 2021-22? Do you have any strategies for the third wave, if it may hit us soon?
It is the set direction of our sails, which determines the way we want to go. The wind direction does not determine our destination. The pandemic situation may come and go, but we believe in our long term strategy to innovate, focus on customer?? requirements, be agile, adapt to new business norms and be profitable. We have handled the last two waves successfully and are confident about the future business prospects.
Which of your products do you see will be the most popular selling products for the cement market? Why?
Our entire product line for gas cooling, fugitive dust control, odour control, cooling and humidification, mill injection systems. Our product lines are for specific applications which will improve the quality and productivity of our customers??processes.
Cement players are adopting the latest technologies to achieve plant efficiency and cost reduction. Kindly share your views.
Yes, the Indian cement industry is technologically superior compared to many other developed countries. Most of our plants are of capacities over 3000 TPD dry kiln process with 6 stage preheater towers. The latest plant capacities are in the region of 10,000 TPD with 7 stage preheater towers. The energy efficiency is comparable to the best in the business. The specific electrical consumption is also very low compared to the world average.
Kindly share your future roadmap/investments.
We are upbeat about our future plans. We will be expanding our product portfolio as soon as the pandemic is coming to an end. We are also looking to increase our production capacities mainly for export to European countries. We have a goal to double our sales by 2025.
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