SPECTRAFLOW RECEIVES A NEW ORDER FOR ONE AIRSLIDE ANALYZER FROM HEIDELBERG MATERIALS SHYMKENT CEMENT, KAZAKHSTAN
Heidelberg Materials ordered a further SpectraFlow Airslide Analyzer for Raw Mill Optimization for their Shymkent Cement manufacturing unit in Kazakhstan. This is the 4th SpectraFlow Airslide Analyzer installation in the Heidelberg Materials Group after Ciments du Maroc (Marrakesh, Morocco), Ciments Calcia (Couvrot, France) and FYM (Arrigorriaga, Spain).
About Heidelberg Materials Kazakhstan:
Heidelberg Materials entered the Kazakh market in 2005 acquiring the Bukhtarma Cement Company. The company operates one cement plant in the east of Kazakhstan suppyling the complete country. In 2014 the newly built Caspi Cement plant started operation and supplies the oil- and gas- rich Caspian sea region with high quality cement more cost-efficiently.
In 2016, with the acquisition of Italcementi, the presence in Kazakhstan of the group was further strengthened, as Italcementi already entered the Kazakh market in 1998 by the take-over of Shymkent Cement.
Shymkent Cement plant is situated in the southern part of the country and began operations back in 1958. After the acquisition, 4 out of 6 wet kiln lines were in operation, which resulted in a yearly production capacity of 1.3m tons of cement. In 2003 the plant also started the production of oil well cement due to high demand by the local market.
In conjunction with Italcementi and Heidelberg Materials environmental and economical targets the old wet lines were replaced by a new state of the art dry-process line in 2016. The new plant with a production capacity of approximately 1.2m tons of cement per year could boost the efficiency while reducing the emissions drastically.
In the original design of the new plant a PGNAA analyzer was installed before the raw mill with the plan to optimize with the real-time measurement results the raw meal quality. However, beside the difficulties of operating the PGNAA analyzer (licenses, permits, safety concerns), the delivered quality of the analytical results of the PGNAA prevented the operation to reach the quality targets. Therefore, the XRF results were used to adjust the additive feeders, which lead to better results, but there was still room for improvement. The SpectraFlow Airslide Analyzer will now close this gap.
SpectraFlow Airslide Analyzer vs. PGNAA Crossbelt Analyzer for Raw Mill Optimization:
The SpectraFlow Airslide Analyzer is installed on the airslide after the raw mill, while the PGNAA is installed on the conveyor belt feeding the raw mill. The analyzer installation point after the raw mill delivers much better real-time analytical results for adjusting the additive feeders than PGNAA installation before the raw mill due to the following reasons:
| BEFORE THE MILL (PGNAA) | AFTER THE MILL (SFA) |
Point of measurement | conveyor belt | airslide |
Raw Material | strongly layered, solid rocks; normally iron ore/slag is in the mix, which is a strong neutron absorber, therefore changing iron ore/slag contents decrease the accuracy of a PGNAA significantly | fine, homogeneous powder |
Measurement | kiln/filter dust is not measured | kiln/filter dust is measured |
Moisture | changing moisture content | dry powder |
Reference | no comparison with XRF possible, no proper online offset correction possible | automatic cross-check with XRF values, very accurate online offset correction possible |
Requirements | consistent belt load / no iron core belt | negative airslide pressure |
Measurement Accuracy | low accuracy | very high accuracy |
Time Delay of feeder adjustments | 10 minutes (due to noisy measurements only 10 ms average values can be used to control the feeders) | 10 minutes (position after the mill, 1 minute results) |
Service Contract | required for PGNAA (to get operating permission from authorities) | optional |
Guarantee LSF STDEV*) of the raw meal | no guarantee (expected performance LSF STDEV = 5) | LSF STDEV < 2.5 |
*) LSF STDEV is defined as hourly values over 10 hours, deviation from the mean |
SpectraFlow Installation for Raw Mill Optimization:
The SpectraFlow Airslide Analyzer is an online analyzer used for measuring raw materials in airslides. As rthe aw materials are processed through a crusher and raw mill, they are statistically homogeneous in this point, contributing to the accuracy of the analytical results of the SpectraFlow Airslide Analyzer.
By using a SpectraFlow Airslide Analyzer and a site-specific raw mix proportioning strategy the variation in the local raw materials can be balanced out to increase consistency of the raw meal and therefore kiln feed quality considerably. Also a variable MgO, Na2O, K2O, Cl and SO3 content is optimally monitored. The highly consistent kiln feed results in fewer kiln stoppages, refractory problems and simultaneously increase the clinker production.
Summarized benefits are:
The analyzer is free of any radioactive sources, neutron generators or any hazardous components. This means the SpectraFlow Analyzer does not require any permits or licenses regarding importation, operation or maintenance.
The SpectraFlow Analyzer is completely safe, maintenance can be done by the plant personal.
Raw meal quality will be homogeneous and on setpoint. That results in stable and optimized kiln operation.
The Airslide Analyzer eliminates the need of automatic sample transport systems, automatic laboratories, high availability of operators and maintenance personal for controlling the raw mill operation.
This SpectraFlow order is the 63rd order for the Cement Industry and the 1st Airslide Analyzer installation in the Republic of Kazakhstan. This order raises the installed base worldwide to 87 analyzers (48 Crossbelt & 39 Airslide) in 30 countries across all continents.
SpectraFlow Analytics Ltd. Switzerland are the experts in providing online analysis for the cement and minerals industry without any radioactive sources nor neutron generators. The NIR technology used for the SpectraFlow Analyzers does not require any permits or licenses and there are no restrictions in buying, importing or maintaining the analyzers. This results in very low operating costs and high availability of the analyzers combined with highly accurate measurement results.