Unit Operations in Environmental Engineering

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE

PROFESSIONAL ACADEMIC SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

Unit Operations of Cement

Professor: Dr. Norma Quispe

Chair: Unit Operations in Environmental Engineering

Presented by:

RED TOWERS, Cesar Deyvis

ABEl CRISPIN JURADO

Huancayo–Peru
2011

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I. INTRODUCTION:
Cement is a finely powdered inorganic material, which when
add water, either alone or mixed with sand, gravel, asbestos or
other similar materials, have the property of setting and hardening,
even underwater, due to chemical reactions during the
hydration and that, once hardened, it retains its strength and
stability

There are different types of cement which vary according to their

composition, characteristics, and applications. Thus, there are cements
for a wide range of construction needs. In the
industrial production of cement, processes can be observed that go
from the extraction of limestone, through the transportation of
raw materials, crushing, pre-homogenization, storage and
grinding of the raw material, homogenization of the raw flour,
calcination and grinding until packaging and shipping. Despite the
great economic impact that the cement industry has to
consider the environmental impact that it has on a population,
since the large amount of dust particles cannot be ignored
that emits carbon dioxide among other gases that degrade the
air quality.

Cement is a basic material for the construction of buildings and

civil works. The production of the cement industry is
directly related to the construction sector in general
and therefore it is a good indicator of the economic situation
global. In 1995, cement production in the European Union
it reached the figure of 172 million tons, which is equivalent to 12%
of world production.
THE STUDENTS

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II. OBJECTIVES:

Expose the generalities of industrial production of

cement.
State the operations, raw materials, intermediaries,
products, by-products, and equipment related to the
industrial production of cement.
State the environmental impacts brought by the industry of
cement

III. ORIGIN OF CEMENT:

Cement has its origins in lime or oxide offootballfrom

of which, after hundreds of years of empirical studies and
scientists, it leads to what is now known as cement. Through
of thehistoryfrom the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman peoples, the used the
lime as a binder in their constructions. In theAmericaPre-Hispanic
theAztecsthey also used it in the manufacture of partitions and
roofs made of cane and bamboo. In 1824, abricklayertheEnglish
called Joseph Aspdin, patented a product that he called cement
Portland, because when it hardens it acquires acolorsimilar to that of a
stone from Portland island [Link] 1838, this cement was
used for the first time in aconstructionthe importance in one of
the tunnels built under the River Thames in London. David Saylor,
an American technician was the first to manufacture cement in
America, this is how the cement industry was born in North America in 1850.

The use of Portland cement continued to spread until

become the most widely used building material in ethe world.

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IV. TYPES OF CEMENT:

a. GRAY CEMENT:
It is a mixture of limestone and clay, crushed and calcined.
up to the melting point, converted into a granular slag
called clinker that is ground with a small proportion
of gypsum (calcium sulfate) until finely
pulverized.

It is the basic binder of concrete and many others.

products used in construction, such as:
mosaics, tiles, blocks, asbestos cement, pipes for
aqueduct and sewage, etc.

b. WHITE CEMENT:
White cement as a binder is a substitute for
gray cement, although its specific use responds to principles
aesthetic and decorative, their main requirement being the
percentage of whiteness which in turn determines its category of
quality in the global market.

V. GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EQUIPMENT

cone crusher
Basically, they consist of a long vertical axis articulated by the
top to a point (spider) and at the bottom to a
eccentric. This shaft carries a crushing cone. All of this
the set is located within the concave or fixed outer cone.
The set, axle, and crushing cone are suspended from the spider and
can rotate freely (85–150 rpm), so that in its
Rotational movement compresses the particles that enter the
crushing chamber (space between the cone
grinder and the concave) continuously fragmenting them by
compression. Figure 1

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b. BALL MILL
It is an efficient tool for the spraying of many
fine powder materials. The ball mill is used to grind
many types of minerals and other materials. The ball mill
It is a key team for re-pulverization.
The ball mill works by causing the body of the barrel
turn and then produce a centrifugal force, at that moment, the
steel balls are taken to a certain height and fall to grind
and hitting the materials. After being coarsely ground
in the first compartment, the materials enter the second
compartment to be re-milled with steel balls. To
finally, the dust is discharged towards the material output.
Figure 2
c. ROTARY OVEN
The rotary kiln used for the production of clinker
cement, as the central unit of the process, is not found
isolated, but is interconnected within the
gear of basic operations and existing units in a
cement production plant. The raw material from the mill
at 70º C, it passes to a four-stage cyclone heat exchanger
where it is heated by the combustion gases generated
in the rotary oven located at 340º C.
Once the material has gone through the last stage of
cyclone exchanger, is introduced into a pre-calciner
before establishing the feed of the rotary kiln. In this
Pre-calciner, the raw material is decarbonated and calcined.
almost entirely by cross current with the gases of
oven at 1500º C. Subsequently, the decarbonated raw material arrives
to the rotary kiln tube where temperatures are reached.
high enough for them to take place
sintering reactions responsible for the formation of the
clinker. In the rotary kiln, the material reaches the temperature
at 1450º C and the combustion gases at a temperature of 2000º

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C. Finally, the clinker is cooled in a grate cooler.

using an air current of 22º C, until the
the temperature of this descends to about 140º C. Figure 3

VI. UNIT OPERATIONS OF CEMENT:

a. EXTRACTION OF RAW MATERIAL:
Limestone and clay are extracted from the stone quarries.
through drilling these drilling machines are of
great performance that they carry out their work supported by

large blasts with boreholes from the surface as well

the raw material is extracted by detonation using explosives, its
the impact is minimal, thanks to the high technology used.

b. TRANSPORT OF RAW MATERIAL:

Once the large masses of stone have been
fragmented, they are transported to the plant by means of a belt,
trucks or bands.

c. GRINDING
The blocks of limestone and the clays coming from
the quarries, enter the crusher, which by the effect of
impact and pressure are reduced to sizes smaller than 10
Cm.

d. PRE-HOMOGENIZATION
It is the proportional mixture of the different types of clay,
limestone or any other material that is required depending
of the type of cement.

e. STORAGE OF RAW MATERIAL

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Each of the raw materials is transported by

separate into deposits where they are dosed for the
production of different types of cements.

f. DRYING AND GRINDING IN RAW

According to the process used, the grinding is done dry or
wet.
In the case of the dry route, the moisture of the crude imposes

technical limitations in grinding and that is why it is necessary

a preliminary drying of the crude will proceed. The drying needs

some gases that can have various origins. In the

dry systems generally the exhaust gases from
oven used for drying, either completely or supported
for gases coming from an auxiliary home when the
the moisture of the crude makes it necessary.

However, in some facilities that have suffered a

important transformation over time, the gases from the furnace
they continue to be expelled into the atmosphere, after passing through

electrofilters and others directly to the atmosphere and all the

The heat necessary for drying is generated in an auxiliary room.
The grinding of the raw material can be done in several stages.
or in a unique mill with several compartments. The choice
the milling system can be carried out according to the
basic schematics:

Open circuit milling: in which the material that

abandon the mill it does not return to it anymore. The elevated

energy consumption and its little flexibility when trying to vary the
The fineness of the product tends to lead to abandonment.

Closed circuit grinding: in which a system of

separation establishes two flows, one of coarse materials that return
to the mill and another of fine materials that are incorporated into the main process.

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g. HOMOGENIZATION
Given that the raw materials used for manufacturing
Cement clinker must meet certain specifications.
defined, before proceeding to its cooking it is necessary
make a final adjustment. This operation is known as the
homogenization name.
In this phase of the process, the composition is determined.
elemental of the resulting crude and relationships are established
numerical values among the most important chemical components
resulting in a series of modules.
The efficiency of homogenization depends largely
measuring the regular operation of the oven, taking into account

resulting in a significant impact on energy consumption of

the plant.
The homogenization facilities in the highway processes
dry can be discontinuous or continuous. In the latter
a prehomogenization is necessary based on some
raw materials previously adjusted.

h. MANUFACTURING OF THE CLINQLER

This operation includes the processes understood from the
feeding of the crude until the exit of the clinker
cooler.
Previously, in the wet process, the paste
homogenized is fed directly into the oven. Finally
on the dry road, the crude (flour) upon its exit from
homogenization moves to the feeding systems and of
it is a preheater consisting of at least one stage of
cyclones.
The physical-chemical processes through which the crude passes
As it heats up, the following measures are taken:

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Drying at a temperature close to 150ºC.

Removal of the structural water from the clay up to the
500°C
Decarbonization from 850ºC to about 1,100ºC.
Clinkerization between 1,250 and 1,475°C.

In general, the reactions that occur until the obtaining

the clinker is strongly endothermic in nature
consumed between 380 and 440 kcal/kg of clinker. The
Reactions that take place are reflected in Figure 5.

Reactions that occur in the oven:

i. CEMENT GRINDING
Clinker is ground using steel balls of different sizes.
sizes as they pass through the two chambers of the mill,
adding gypsum to extend the setting time
(hardening upon contact with water) of the cement.
Grinding can be done by:
Open circuit: the pre-grinding and refining are carried out in a
single mill, normally divided into two chambers, being the
last equipped with a ball classifier. The difficulties of
this system is the dissipation of the latent heat of the clinker and
of grinding, which requires strong ventilation of the
mill and even the water injection, and the difficulty of
quick change to other finenesses different from the predetermined one.

Closed circuit: the installation is equipped with a separator,

being the arrangement of the set similar to that of grinding
raw.

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The separator makes it possible to regulate fineness within

certain limits. The mills are usually of two chambers: to
just like in the previous case, it is necessary to remove a large
amount of heat, although this fact is favored here
due to the possibility of using larger airflows, but
a water injection may still be necessary.
Normally, the pure closed circuit is used, not the double one.
rotary as there are no noticeable advantages in the
second system and has against it a higher cost of
installation.
Except regarding the use of gases not
there are essential differences between the systems of
crushing of the crude and the clinker. Here it is more pronounced.
the use of closed circuit grinding, due to the greater
requirements of the cement granulometry.

j. PACKAGING AND SHIPPING OF CEMENT

The cement is sent to the storage silos; of the
which is extracted by pneumatic or mechanical systems, being
transported to where it will be packaged in a paper bag.

VII. RAW MATERIALS, FINAL PRODUCTS

a. RAW MATERIALS
There are various types of cement, their properties and
characteristics vary depending on the proportion that is
add from each raw material. Despite the
the compositions of the raw materials of cement vary from
in accordance with the needs, they can be stated in such a way
general the following components:
CaCO3Limestone
SiO2(Naturally or as an additive)
Al2O3(Naturally or as an additive)
FeCO3(Naturally or as an additive)
Calcium Sulfate4

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b. FINAL PRODUCTS
Depending on the type of cement, the final product may
to have different compositions:
Portland Cement
64% calcium oxide
21% silicon oxide
5.5% aluminum oxide
4.5% iron oxide
2.4% magnesium oxide
1.6% sulfates
1% other materials, mainly water.

Pozzolanic cement

55-70% of Portland clinker

30-45% of pozzolana (siliceous or alumino- materials)
siliceous
2-4% of gypsum

Aluminous cement

35-40% calcium oxide

40-50% aluminum oxide
5% silicon dioxide
5-10% iron oxide
1% titanium dioxide

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VIII. ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT OF THE CEMENT INDUSTRY

One of the most polluting processes in the industry of

cement is associated with calcination kilns as
they consume a large amount of energy to reach
the necessary temperatures and expel all kinds of
emissions such as dust particles, gases like carbon dioxide
sulfur, nitrogen oxides, monoxide and dioxide of carbon,
not forgetting chlorides, fluorides, organic compounds
toxins and heavy metals. Let's remember that the gas dioxide of
carbon is one of the main contributors to the effect
greenhouse produced by climate change. It is for this
the reason that the Cement industry has a great impact
negative to the environment despite its great impact
economic. One way to reduce the emission of particles from
powder with the aim of not affecting the health of a population
Aledaña is the use of bag filters in ovens. Likewise
it is necessary to use mechanical collectors of
dust in areas where the grinders are located,
transporters, loading system, etc. In summary, the
companies in charge of cement production must
commit to the use of processes that guarantee the
environmental sustainability and the reduction of impacts on
health.

conclusions

Despite the significant economic impact that the industry has

cement must consider the negative impact on the environment
environment and health.

Companies responsible for the production of cement must

commit to the adjustment of processes that minimize the

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environmental impact and improve the health conditions of the

surrounding populations.
bibliography
Energy Conservation Techniques in Industry/Savings in Process.
Tomo II. Energy Studies Center Publishing. ISBN 84-7474-168-8
Energy Diagnosis/Cement Branch. Address of
Energy, Department of State Energy Inspection, Cuba.
2000. Available on the Internet:The provided text is a URL and does not contain any translatable content.
mep/Document/[Link].
Cement and Lime. Available on the Internet:The provided text is a URL and does not contain translatable content.
Cement manufacturing process. Available on the Internet:
[Link]/[Link]
XI. ANNEXES:

Figure 1: Cone Crusher

Figure 2: Ball mill

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Figure 3: Rotary furnace

Figure 3: Rotary Furnace

Figure 4: Stages of production

of cement

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Figure 5: Cooking reactions

of the clinker

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