Economy & Market

Controlling Dust at Critical Connections

Published

7 months ago

October 10, 2025

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Jerad Heitzler, Training Manager, Martin Engineering, writes about controlling dust at conveyor transfer points to protect worker health and to extends equipment life and boost operational efficiency.

Transfer points are critical connections between key stages of cement manufacturing, but they are notorious as a source of fugitive dust. After all, whenever materials like crushed limestone, shale or clinker drop onto a moving conveyor, dust emissions are inevitable, aren’t they? Not necessarily.
When loose materials hit a moving conveyor belt, the impact causes some of the cargo to disperse, particulates become airborne, and the subsequent air turbulence forces the dust toward the nearest opening. If the environment isn’t sealed, the dust-filled air creates a serious workplace health and safety hazard, a problem that’s exacerbated if dust is allowed to build up.
Dust emissions don’t just create a harmful environment for those working in the area. Abrasive particulates make their way into exposed machine parts and rolling components, causing them to wear quicker, seize and require replacement sooner. Particulates also clog air intakes of nearby equipment, further raising the need for maintenance and downtime. Then as it settles, dust builds up to cover walkways and stairs, engulfing control units, obscuring signage and, in some cases making access for maintenance impossible without a full shutdown and clean-up.
Often, the biggest issue is the team’s lack of understanding of the underlying sources of dust at transfer points. In fact, there are just three factors that cause dust in any minerals processing plant:
a. Material degradation from crushing and milling, as well as transfer and movement, which creates an abundance of fine particles that become airborne.
b. Air flow through the plant is a key factor in carrying airborne particulates and this can be controlled with the right design, considering material speed, volume and fall.
c. Transfer point design is one of the main causes of dust emissions and spillage on conveyor systems, often exacerbated due to desired increases in productivity.

Best practices for transfer point dust control

Avoid belt sag with impact cradle support. For each transfer point, support the belt the entire length of the chute wall so it doesn’t sag away from skirting. The pressure from air turbulence is enough to push dust and fines out of these gaps, causing excessive dust and spillage.
Use wearliners to increase system life. Modern chute designs raise the height of the chute, providing more room for dust to settle in the stilling zone and allowing space for an external wearliner. Without it, the rubber skirting takes the force of falling materials which lowers the equipment’s life.
Seal the environment with belt skirting. Single skirting should be cut to the belt’s trough angle for a tighter seal and mounted externally for easy and safe adjustment. Self-adjusting skirting has spring-driven latches that offer slight downward pressure for reduced maintenance. Dual skirting offers a single skirt with a rubber flap that provides a second layer of sealing and protection from spillage and emissions.
Use dust collection only when necessary – ‘Passive dust control’ uses engineered solutions such as controlled loading, wearliners, skirting, curtains and modular enclosures first. When there are length or space restrictions for chutes, which prevent an extended settling zone, dust bags and mechanical air cleaners are still effective, but they can require more maintenance, so sealing at source is better.
Slow the exiting air velocity. Some flow of air is still going to be exiting the system, but the key is slowing it to under 200 fpm (1 m/s), slow enough to allow for settlement happen. Adding a tail panel and curtains is essential to this but simply adding them at the ends does not accomplish the proper stilling environment required. Understanding the air flow and then strategic placement is the key to reducing exiting air velocity.

Conclusion
Improving workplace air quality in a cement plant seems like a challenge but eliminating dust delivers numerous benefits, notably in health and safety, housekeeping, efficiency, productivity and cost reduction. Of course, conveyor transfer points are not the only source of dust. However, as one of the most prevalent generators of particulate emissions in any bulk handling operation, addressing these is an excellent place to start.
By following best practices using modern and well-designed retrofitted components, and expert advice from experienced technicians, operators can tackle dust in a methodical way. Once the major dust sources are addressed, it becomes easier to identify emissions from other parts of the operation with the ultimate goal of a clean, efficient and
safe operation.

About the author:
As programme manager and lead instructor for Martin Engineering’s FOUNDATIONS™ Training Workshops, Jerad Heitzler is a leader in helping the industry learn how to make the handling of bulk materials cleaner, safer and more productive.

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Economy & Market

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

Published

2 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

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2 weeks ago

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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

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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.