Economy & Market

Product life is always a matter of innovation

Published

5 months ago

November 17, 2025

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Utssav Gupta, Director, Supertech Fabrics, explains how innovation in industrial filtration is evolving towards energy optimisation, material resilience and sustainability.

As cement manufacturers embrace new fuels, stricter emission norms and evolving material chemistries, the role of filtration has become more strategic than ever. Supertech Fabrics, a pioneer in industrial filter media, is redefining performance through advanced coating chemistries, collaborative R&D and intelligent design. In this conversation, Utssav Gupta shares insights into how Supertech Fabrics is aligning technology, collaboration and sustainability to shape the next phase of filtration excellence.

How do you define innovation in industrial fabrics for cement applications?
I think there’s a lot of room for innovation as the processes are changing, the fuels are changing, which leads to changes in the stream. The powder is evolving with the innovations of cement producers themselves. There are also more stringent environmental norms now. So, the whole cement industry—whether in terms of materials or systems—is going through a lot of transition. These are minor transitions, not as big as inventing the wheel, but still significant enough to fine-tune cement processes. This transition percolates down to us as well, as filter fabric producers, where we need to respond in conjunction with the system and the end users’ goals of creating a more sustainable cement industry than before.

What’s driving your latest breakthroughs in filtration and fabric performance?
For us, the focus is on energy saving in the plant. We aim to address not only the efficiency of filtration but also the cleanability aspects of the filter fabric, which directly impact energy consumption and running losses for cement users. So, the driver for us is not just filtration quality but also the amount of energy used to achieve that filtration quality.
Of course, product life is always a matter of innovation. We constantly evaluate the impact of changes in powder chemistry and fluid chemistry on filter fabric performance. That is an ongoing area of in-house research for us.

How do your products maintain their durability in high-heat and dusty plant environments?
It’s because of the coating chemistries we use. As I mentioned earlier, durability is not just about product life—it’s also about performance aspects. Heat, dust and gaseous environments are all part of the cement process. We must embrace them rather than treat them as problems. With these coating chemistries, we can fine-tune our products to deliver both filtration efficiency and energy efficiency.

How do your collaborations with OEMs or cement producers shape the innovations that happen in your organisation?
Collaboration is very important. When we talk to OEMs or cement producers, they often face issues they haven’t encountered before, because small changes in their supply chain can impact their systems. As someone passionate about filtration, our understanding comes primarily from such interactions and collaborations. Once we learn about a problem, we try to feed that insight back into our system, making the first supply itself as intelligent as possible.
Industry collaboration is essential—no one can progress without it. But what makes it truly interesting is how you collaborate in an environment that’s constantly bringing new and unknown challenges. That’s what has kept our collaborations engaging—with all major OEMs and top producers in the
cement industry.

What steps are you taking toward making your materials more sustainable for production? And how are you bringing sustainability into your operations?
Sustainability has multiple dimensions. Gone are the days when we could simply say ‘go green’ and call it sustainable. We must embrace the challenges of the industry. The cement industry has historically been very polluting, and that pollution isn’t just about dust—it’s also about discarded materials.
Now, with the use of AFRs, the industry is evolving into a pollution-absorbing one, since waste that would have ended up in the environment is now being used as a fuel source. But this brings new challenges for material performance. If you look at all these dimensions, I will say filtration must improve—not only to prevent air pollution but also to withstand the challenges of using other waste-based fuels. Our filters must not absorb one type of waste and create another problem through shorter life cycles. Material life cycles must be strong enough to reduce industrial waste simultaneously. In combining all these aspects, we work toward a comprehensive sustainability model—of which we are a small but integral part.

How has digitalisation influenced your R&D and quality control?
Digitalisation is a very interesting and fast-evolving subject. OEMs are moving toward IoT sensors and live data analysis. However, we’ve found that live data is often not as detailed from a filtration perspective. As filter bag producers, we sometimes find it difficult to analyse system performance without the right data. Nevertheless, this trend is growing. Through collaboration with OEMs, we’ve been able to provide feedback on which parameters should be monitored while installing instrumentation. Once you have proper instrumentation, you can gain live insights into what’s happening in real time—allowing for calculations and understanding of where more efficiency can be achieved. These digital tools—IoT sensors, predictive analytics, trend mapping—are giving us insights we never had before. This is reshaping the industry and prompting us to raise our game further.

What material or filtration trends do you see shaping the industry’s future?
I’d say the base materials themselves are going through a small shift—not too drastic. We’re still using traditional materials but combining them with advanced chemistries. It’s essentially a two-part system—resurrecting the old while adapting it for the future through coating chemistry.
The trends are largely driven by the changes we discussed earlier: in-feed composition, material supply chains, and the broader economic environment. The supply chain for end users is not entirely under their control, so equipment and materials need to adapt. This adaptability helps ensure that end users are not constrained by external changes.

What’s next for Supertech Fabrics in advanced filtration and sustainability?
We’re riding the innovation curve right now and pushing in that direction. One major development I see is deeper collaboration with technical OEMs, which allows us to innovate more effectively. In the future, I see more integration between filtration systems and OEM technologies. That’s one of the trends that will have an immediate impact on both filtration quality and sustainability. That’s the direction we are moving toward in the coming years.

– Kanika Mathur

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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.