Huaxin Cement wins WCA 2024 innovation award

Huaxin Cement has won the Innovation Award of the World Cement Association 2024 for its Intelligent Low-Carbon Cement Manufacturing Technology (ILCCM). Huaxin is the only cement company with two consecutive WCA Innovation Awards, having previously won it in 2023 for its "Development and Application of Low Carbon and Nitrogen Reduction Ultra Large Scale Cement Production Technology and Equipment,” said the WCA.

Under the leadership of CEO Yeqing Li, Huaxin has been recognised as a global leader not only in cement low-carbon manufacturing technology and the co-processing of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) and alternative fuel raw (AFR) but also in its intelligent technologies that significantly increase cement plants’ thermal substitution rate (TSR), even with the low-quality RDF and AFR typically found in developing countries. With its advanced technologies, Huaxin has been promoting energy efficiency and carbon emission reduction within its global plants.

Under the guidance of the Chinese policy of “Carbon Peak” and “Carbon Neutrality,” Huaxin takes the initiative to use RDF, AFR, and industrial and commercial solid waste as replacements for coal in cement production. These changes have significantly reduced coal consumption and carbon emissions as well as lowering production costs, thereby yielding considerable economic benefits.

However, the adoption of large amounts of RDF and AFR in developing countries has proven difficult, especially when they are not fully processed or prepared with a steady supply like in well-developed countries. The negative impacts on the manufacturing process are caused by low calorific value, high moisture content, and non-unified complex compositions with frequent substantial fluctuations, which present challenges in maintaining clinker quality and controlling production processes. Consequently, further increases in the TSR are hindered by the following obstacles:

1. The utilisation of large amounts of complex, low-quality, and heterogeneous RDF and AFR introduces significant negative impacts on the cement manufacturing process.
2. The non-unified RDF and AFR make them exceedingly difficult to store and homogenise.
3. The extensive use of complex RDF and AFR makes it difficult to maintain the quality consistency of clinker.
4. The corrosive nature of RDF and AFR accelerates equipment degradation. 

Led by Mr Li, Huaxin teamed with Alibaba Cloud, to solve the challenges in low-carbon cement manufacturing in developing countries. Huaxin has developed a set of comprehensive intelligent systems for the entire process of cement manufacturing based on Alibaba’s AICS Industrial Brain platform. This innovative approach effectively solved production bottlenecks and enabled plants to improve TSR and energy efficiency in the case of massive usage of low-quality RDF and AFR. It can significantly lower the technical barriers of low-carbon cement manufacturing in developing countries and further promote the carbon reduction process of the global cement industry.