With Vietnam’s growing industrialisation which is producing more and more waste, collecting and recycling this waste as alternative fuel for cement plants is a new and practical way to save energy and protect the environment. LOESCHE Symposium Hanoi | August 22, 2018

1. Companies10August 20-26, 2018 l www.vir.com.vn
By Nguyen Huong
With Vietnam’s growing
industrialisation which is pro-
ducing more and more waste,
collecting and recycling this
waste as alternative fuel for
cement plants is a new and
practical way to save energy
and protect the environment.
The cement industry has
made significant contribu-
tions to processing waste
from industrial factories.
Many types of waste, such as
blast furnace slag, slag and
fly ash from thermal power
plants, pyrite slag, and gyp-
sum recovered from chemical
plants, are used as raw mate-
rials and additives in cement
production.
Clinker furnaces have a
very high temperature (be-
tween 1,450 and 2,000 de-
grees Celsius), and are
suitable for processing haz-
ardous waste from medicine
and chemical facilities and oil
refineries, according to the
Vietnam Association for
Building Materials (VABM).
A cement plant usually
consumes 3,000-6,500 mil-
lion joules of fuel per tonne
of clinker produced, depend-
ing on the raw materials and
the process used. It has been
reported that the costs associ-
ated with fuel in a cement
plant can be as high as 30 to
40 per cent of the total pro-
duction costs.
Meanwhile, every year,
15 million tonnes of living
waste are collected. Nearly
80 per cent of which goes to
landfills and only about 20
per cent is treated by inciner-
ation or recycling. If this con-
tinues, it will be very difficult
to find landfills, especially as
urban areas are expanding
across the country.
“Therefore, if cement
plants are involved in the
waste treatment process, it
will bring about great bene-
fits to society in how we treat
the environment and by re-
covering the energy that is
currently lost due to waste
going straight to landfill,”
said Tong Van Nga, chairman
of VABM.
Using alternative fuels
will help reduce energy costs
and provide a competitive
edge for cement plants. This
will benefit the plant eco-
nomically and environmen-
tally, improving its
sustainability and reducing
the burden of waste disposal
considerably.
To discuss this issue and
create co-operation opportu-
nities for building materials
companies, VABM will host
a symposium themed “Pro-
cessing waste to alternative
fuels for cement industry” on
August 22 at the Grand Plaza
Hotel on 117 Tran Duy Hung
street in Hanoi’s Cau Giay
district.
At the symposium, repre-
sentatives of corporations in
the cement and environment
industry, state agencies, and
institutes will discuss the po-
tential uses of alternative
fuels in cement plants to re-
duce the industry’s carbon
dioxide emissions with Ger-
many’s Loesche GmbH.
“Loesche GmbH has al-
ready transferred technology,
provided machinery, and co-
operated with Vietnamese
mechanical companies to re-
duce power and heat con-
sumption. I believe that they
will succeed in processing
waste to alternative fuels to
replace original fuels in the
cement industry,” said Nga.
The symposium will
cover a number of issues, in-
cluding the monitoring
process; the relationship be-
tween the production process
and the quality of the product
as well as the quality of the
gas emitted to the environ-
ment.
Besides, the event will
also delve into other issues,
such as the supervision pro-
cedures of the competent au-
thorities for collection,
reception, processing, and
burning in the cement kiln
system; and the necessity of
an appropriate legal frame-
work to encourage the effec-
tive application of this type of
technology.n
New prospects
for cement in
waste-to-fuel
German firm Loesche will present its solutions for cement plants at a symposium on August 22 in Hanoi