Coal and electricity are the main sources of energy for the cement industry and typically account for about 50% of the total cost of cement production. In the past two years, with the rising price of coal, the production cost of cement enterprises is under great pressure, and enterprises are also thinking about how to deal with it.
The sun is the source of the earth's energy. Can sunlight be collected to generate high temperature to make cement? This idea may really be realized in the future.
Recently, researchers at the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, Switzerland, have developed a heat collection device that can be used to collect sunlight to generate high temperatures, which is expected to help energy-intensive industries achieve carbon neutrality in the future. The device consists of a translucent quartz rod coupled with an opaque ceramic base plate, which can produce "heat trap effect", that is, heat is generated by absorbing infrared rays from sunlight and maintaining a high temperature.
In one experiment, the researchers embedded a quartz rod with a diameter of 7.5 centimeters and a length of 30 centimeters on a ceramic substrate and illuminated the device with artificial light equivalent to 135 times the intensity of sunlight. The results showed that the temperature at the end of the quartz rod reached 1050 degrees Celsius. Emiliano Casati of the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, the corresponding author of the
paper, said that the new method significantly improved the efficiency of absorbing solar energy, and that in the future, the technology could not only use solar energy to generate electricity, but also help decarbonize energy-intensive industries on a large scale.
In the future, solar energy is expected to replace coal to "calcine" cement clinker , promote the energy transformation of the industry, and bring great changes to the cement industry. At a time when the
industry is facing severe challenges, it is of immeasurable strategic significance and practical utility to actively promote the upgrading of large-scale production equipment and actively promote the energy-saving technological innovation and environmental protection upgrading and transformation of the cement industry, so as to enhance the core competitiveness of cement enterprises and realize the grand blueprint of sustainable development of the industry.
To this end, China Cement Network will hold the 11th China Cement Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Technology Exchange Conference-Equipment Renewal Forum in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province on June 13-14 . This forum will gather government leaders, industry technical specialist, scientific research institutions, universities, cement enterprises and equipment suppliers to discuss and analyze the practical path of equipment renewal and green upgrading in the cement industry, so as to promote the industry to move towards a more energy-efficient, greener and environmentally friendly future. After the meeting, we will organize a visit to Jurong TCC, a state-level green factory.
