First FLSmidth FUELFLEX® Pyrolyzer installed at Mannok

FLSmidth has celebrated the installation of its  FUELFLEX^® Pyrolyzer at Mannok Cement, Ireland. The world’s first FUELFLEX^® Pyrolyzer has been successfully been in operation at the Mannok plant since July 2022.  

Mannok now controls NO_x emissions without needing to use ammonia water and increase alternative fuels utilisation, thus putting the plant firmly on the path to achieve its 2030 Vision target of reducing CO₂ emissions by 33 per cent compared to 2020 levels.  

The FUELFLEX^® Pyrolyzer was initially dreamt up in FLSmidth’s research and development facility in Dania, where engineers were exploring the potential of gasification to reduce carbon emissions. Once the concept reached a certain point of development, Project Manager, Lars Skaarup Jensen, took it to Mannok as a co-development project. 

Mannok was already using solid recovered fuel (SRF) produced from waste diverted from landfill but was limited as to how much they could burn due to build-up in the process. The FUELFLEX^® Pyrolyzer effectively reorganises the combustion process to create a more efficient method of alternative fuels utilisation that does not have this problem. Recovered fuels are introduced with the preheated raw meal, effectively using hot meal as the gasification medium. Therefore, the fuel is pyrolysed, not burned. This creates a more stable kiln process and enables greater use of moist SRF at Mannok, and it completely eliminates the need for ammonia to mitigate NO_x, which represents both a cost and safety benefit.

Kevin Lunney, chief operations officer for Mannok, says the cost saving of replacing coal with waste fuels would have been enough to justify the project, but that is not why Mannok agreed to partner with FLSmidth. “What we’re really chasing is a lower carbon end product. That’s what our customers want, and it’s what we want. The FUELFLEX^® has already enabled us to reduce our carbon emissions. We expect to be at near-zero coal on the preheater within the next 12 months.”

The full commercial launch of the FUELFLEX^® Pyrolyzer is planned for 2024-25.