Electric Calciner technology (ECem)
The overall aim of the project is to research a new limestone calciner technology that using renewable electrical energy that is compatible with carbon capture, large-scale utilisation, and storage (CCUS), as well as carbon capture and direct utilisation using renewable hydrogen. The new technologies will be ready for further scale-up and deployment of economically viable solutions in different global markets.
ECem's vision is to develop two price-competitive calcination solutions that can be commercialised and cement producers can apply to cement production, either with a value stream from CO2 storage or utilization. The consortium envisions that the new electric calcination technologies will become a cornerstone of cement plants of the future to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the cement industry and fight climate change on a large scale.
Challenges:
- Electric (inductive) heating of electrically weakly conductive materials
- Bad heat transfer coefficients cause uneven temperature distributions and poor efficiency
- Up-scaling from laboratory to industrially relevant conditions
HZDR contribution:
- HZDR develops a concept for inductive heating of limestone
- The feasibility of direct electric heating should be demonstrated in an inductive heated calciner
- Systematic experiments in lab-scale experimental setups to investigate heat transfer and to find optimal process parameters
- Instrumentation concept using inductive methods
- Holistic concepts including convection as transport mechanism (Coupling of inductive heating and electric gas heating)
- Combination of the process steps of calcination and milling process
