thyssenkrupp’s Polysius business unit has been commissioned to build a pure oxyfuel kiln system at the Mergelstetten cement plant in southern Germany
Research company Cement Innovation for Climate, or CI4C, founded by cement manufacturers Buzzi Unicem – Dyckerhoff, Heidelberg Cement, SCHWENK Zement & Co, KG and Vicat SA, has commissioned thyssenkrupp’s Polysius business unit to build a pure oxyfuel kiln system on the site of the Mergelstetten cement plant in southern Germany.
They polysius pure oxyfuel process is a new type of clinker production process in which the otherwise normal ambient air is replaced by pure oxygen in the kiln combustion process. The novel process aims to concentrate, capture and re-use almost 100% of the carbon dioxide (CO2) produced, in a cost-effective manner.
The medium-term goal is to further process the captured CO2 with the help of renewable energies into so-called reFuels, to produce climate-neutral synthetic fuels such as kerosene for the aviation industry.
In the currently used clinker burning process, oxygen is derived from ambient air. By using ambient air, which has an oxygen content of about 21%, nitrogen is introduced into the system and the CO2 concentration in the exhaust gas is only about 25% to 30%. By introducing pure oxygen with the polysius pure oxyfuel process, atmospheric nitrogen is eliminated from the clinker burning process. The gas volume is considerably reduced and allows for a high concentrations of CO2 in the exhaust gas, allowing for almost 100% capture of climate-damaging CO2. 