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A new solution for Mercury - Emission Reduction in the Cement Industry: Michael Suppaner, A TEC (Austria) & Georg Lechner, Scheuch GmbH (Austria).

Filmed at Cemtech Europe 2015, 20-23 September, Intercontinental Hotel, Vienna, Austria.

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Very new development which has been triggered a couple of years ago by Weitersdorf cement works, and we work together with the cement plant and scheuch gmbh on this project to develop a system to remove mainly mercury from the clinkerisation on the pyro-process of the cement plant. The whole idea started because particularly in the United States, the emission regulation in terms of heavy metal and mercury got more and more stringent European [xx]. I think in 2018, 19 this reloads will come in Europe now. And for that reason we started this joint and seem to be on the very right way.

As you will see, very shortly in this presentation, with it we jointly [xx] but unfortunately to cancel very shortly so I take over his part here, and we'll give cut short introduction in the whole system and then Georg Lechner from Scheuch will give the very technical details of this whole system.

Weitersdorf cement plant in Austria which is one of the pioneering plants of usage of alternative fuels in world. Actually, these plants started in about 1989, 1988 even. When it was still a loop hole, [xx] to use IDF to use RDFS and plastics at this time definitely it can be proud of being one of the pioneers and they use it for alternative fuels and the roads.

The meantime then since their IT has had a high thermal substitution rates, gave them a lot of problems of course working with leopard film. They had a couple of organisations projects starting in 2002. First it started first of all, that thye got a new raw mill nothing to do with the [xx] directly. But, then in 2003 till 2005, we got a new state of the art at this time.

Clinker cooler from claudius peters and they got complete alternative fuel processing plant prepairing big quantities of alternate fuels by themselves but not all fuels get ready. They use various kinds whereas most of the plans in Central Europe. And also in 2005 it was all big parts, the kiln system was changed from a leopard kiln to a state of the art preheater kiln with a very large calciner.

seven or eight seconds retention time and 5 stages, and into the residual system now that required for efficient usage of alternative fuels. Today the plant is using close to 90 percent of alternative fuels without big problems. And certainly issues like emissions and the environmental issues here in middle Europe one very important factor.

And the motivation to come to this project that we developed heavy metal particularly mercury removal system, started about 2013 United States was [xx] convention. Where new emission limits of 30 micro gram per one cubic meter yearly average on the state were demanded. And up to then, or up to now there were no real efficient systems on the market to cope with this problem. And I think we are one of the first now [xx] of the three companies to go in detail and develop a viable economic [xx] of physical system to remove mercury particularly, but also other heavy metals from the emissions.

First detailed calculation simulations, and then that is where in the plant to find out where the mercury is coming from. Basically, of course from the fuels word is coming from detail this [xx], we are not so detail but where this is coming from, we will focus now on the removal.

The first issue was to identify or to determine exactly the battery cycle. So, in the trial operation so it is the first test filter pass was taken out of the system to see, because usually filter pass is taken back to the process the kiln filter. Talking about the kiln filter, what happens when you remove the filter that really don't have to edit back to our process, and it showed very good results the moment it came down, but the problem is that this is not very efficient and feasible, economical solutions.

So. past charcoaling[sp?] it's coal now, it means what we did review 100% at the field test, then we test off [xx] coming down [xx]. Put the material back to the filter, they're owing to the raw meal, but what then, the problem is first of all we're loosing material, and second of all what we do is in this case is it's in the relatively small plants where like Lowery spoke destroy all the huge plants. The [xx] capacity 20, 0000 pounds they're usually running on 1600, 1700 pounds per day. And they would create around 70, 000 tons of K filter pass which would have to be disposed off some way. So, from that point of view it seems not to be a very feasible and reliable solution. And other methods like filtration activated carbon which already has been tested in the States before in the United States.

Also are not really economically physical solutions. If there was no other solution plants would have go to for that. In the future and pay more money for that it. But, it was not the way for us to go in this project in this research development project. So, the targets were how can we still 100% of the mercury enriched filter task without loosing it, and without having any material to dispose of.

At the end of the day, a lot of testing a lot of simulations and mathematical models. Its turned very nicely out that thermal treatment is the best way. I saw we will not go into details of this because George will come to the details of this process anyway. But, if we end up, temperature ranges 300-350 degrees, we practically 100% evaporation rate of mercury, this we have to make use of this.

I'll handle this effect, and so the direction was clear finally how to go ahead. Air classification of the filter task is possible, but it's not the way, it's too find, so the efficiency would be very low. And with the general treatment we found out that over 95% evaporation removal might be possible, and so the idea of what call my ex-mercury system was born,. And I will hand now over to George who will go over the technical details of this system, and I hope you find some interesting aspects.

Thanks Michael for the introduction and the explanation of the starting point in the [xx] store for cement plant. The next few pages which will come I will explain you the working principles of this installation. And tell you details about key equipment that we use for the mercury plant.

And some figures about the performances and the peak advantages of the solution. As Michael said we just has the first full scale, of the pilot plant, it's a full scale operation plant ex mercury and default[sp?]. What you see here is a typical sheen of the bio process line simplified with preheat raw mill, kiln back field and the stack. And we start to identify the three input sources of heavy metals or mercury, which is mainly the raw material pure in form, and the only [xx] is input factor is the burning material from the main burner and of course add secondary sewage lutch[sp?] all these kinds of alternatives that we have heard today.

The raw material such as system via the raw meat [xx]. And the mercury in the raw material is pounded on the fine dust it enters to breath the power in the pop stage, and gets evaporated very soon on the pop stage area. At this temperatures what we have seen in these lights before 300, 350 degrees.

We have nearly all metals out of the dust, and back into gas. And this phenomenon happens in every preheat all over the world every hour. It's nothing use physical chemical process. The mercury in that phase is recondensed then the mill and O-mill. And a portion of that goes back to meet the mill itself to the pre-heater, and the portion goes back to the filter dust. And the concentration of this floss is little bit different but the defrait[sp?] of the mercury in the dust in the filter dust, and in the raw mill is quite equal. You see here different colors in this sheem[sp?], which you make a link of the concentration and different phases.

Finally, the filter dust has a certain absorption capacity. And once this is saturated the mercury relieves the system out of the stack, and this initial pics for PC on the stuck never in the compound operation, the standard operation, or when they have [xx] emission picked when the cycle is reloaded. And that is the point that we started with ex mercury system. The job is to break up this mercury cycle.

I thought you if here in this movie is just to stimulate the things that happen in the power process system. The whole what you see here mercury point, and it's very audio moving here quite in the same rates as they're moving in the system into true scale. So, we see here the mercury input from the raw mill. It gets evaporated into preheater section, into top stage section, and it returns back to the gas to the raw mill. And what you see here is also that some part of the mercury is already in the bust into bust size in the filter bust site. And to have ion emissions on the stack you will see the next few seconds how the emission on the stack will increase. And this is due to the fact that circle this external circle between the raw mill to filter is saturated.

So, slowly, slowly you will see the red line here after the back filter comes more and rich and rich, and rich in Mercury. And this is the only source that we have foods, we have mercury coming from the main fuel, and mercury from the ADF alternative fuels inputs. And now a lot of action in the system, and you see the concentration cycle the filter starts to come richer and richer in the mercury.

This is the key point of the ex-mercury system. So, break the system here, we stop blending the filter task with raw materials and install the ex mercury system which will come up. So, we need some main component at least at here. We have little pre-heater beside the main pre heater so called pre heater.

What we did is we use the pre heater we installled a pre heater to warm up the raw materials to consign the raw material. And we installed a little one to stick either besides. The next machine is hot gas filter, ranging and absorbing packed some gas from back filter and the disposal handling system.

So, what you see is the so called fit the heater so they small heat that we can imagine here in this picture, leave this yellow marked area, And then this in this split pre heater, we introduce completely 100% of the kiln filter dust by pragmatic transplant. The next machine is the hot gas filter.

So, the gases which leave this peak preheat has a temperature a round 350- 400 degrees. And we installed a hot gas heater, small unit with ceramic heat elements, and can take out the materials 100%. So, 100% of the [xx] is separated in the hot gas filter, and goes back to pre heater without any thermal losses.

This a key point of the ex mercury system. After the cleaned gas we have the concentration of mercury in the gas phase, and we have to cool down, and had solvent. In this case [xx] [xx].Ffinally, the job is finished, by a solvent back filter which separates the activated coal, or the [xx] from the gas flow. And as result, we have a high concentration of mercury in a very, very small quantity of material of solvents.

And this leaves the system via the disposal handling plant. What you see here on the right picture is a small intermediate silo, and the left picture is automatic packing unit to for the mercury which loaden[sp?] solvents which goes to the recycling center. Yeah, as I said the key point is to split to separate the filter dust from blending to the [xx] mill. This we do as shown here in this [xx].

The split pre heater gets hot gas from the lowest stages of the kiln around 800 degrees, and automatically we transport dust to the ex-mercury installation where all these process starts. The evaporation of the higher metallic components in the split pre heater, collecting of the dust in the hot gas filter, absorbing, as clenching and absorbing in the reactor soon, and finally back filter for the solvent material.

Again the link with the concentration on materials both in the gas stream and in the material stream here. What the big success factors of this ex mercury system? As we have a kiln emission with action 180% reached from the very first day that we started this plant in [xx]. The system as a whole is very energy saving because we do not have any thermal losses. So, once the filter dust is heated it remains hot in the fire process.

The clean gas I move to high concentration on the mercury is able to have extremely high utilization of the solvent which is your operation cost. Consequently, if you have to input low quantity of active solvents, you have low cost on the disposal. As you can imagine the system is process integrated. Its not the end of pipe solution or a treatment system, its process integrated and easy to operate.

So, we have the feedback from the plants that spent 2, 3 hours, main hours a week for this plant, and this is mainly to get a fresh activated carbon [xx] system. Equipment size needed for I think that installation is quite low. As we treat it takes 3 to 10% of the total gas flow only, and yeah we can use the dust in the system we don't need to take out dust and have a chance to get a clean plain cement there is no blending to cement if any naturally loaded components. And last but not least the system is called it's battery, but it deals also with other heavy metal fractures which have the similar evaporation filaments and itself.

So, we call it it's multi-pollutant treatment system. Yeah, and the equipment installation is compared to that effectiveness whether its providing alternative low international cost. Rather, its the background of the mercury installation, we just off. And I'm on the end of my presentation.

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