Bangladesh: Shah Cement has inaugurated the world’s largest vertical roller mill (VRM), supplied by Denmark’s FLSmidth, at its Muktarpur plant in Munshiganj. The mill is designed to produce Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC), Pozzolana Portland Cement (PPC), Portland Slag Cement (PSC) and slag cement types. It is producing PPC at a capacity of 500t/hr at 3500 Blaine with 15% slag.

The FLSmidth OK 81-6 Mill has an 8.1m grinding table and six grinding rollers powered by two 5.8MW FLSmidth MAAG Max Drive gear systems. FLSmidth says that the mill is the largest VRM ever to be installed in a cement plant in terms of dimension, operating capacity and installed power. In addition to the OK Mill, FLSmidth supplied the process and layout engineering, along with site advisory. The supporting equipment included FLSmidth Pfister weigh feeders, FLSmidth Airtech process bag filters, process fans and auxiliary equipment from raw material hopper discharge to process bag filter discharge. It was put in operation in September 2018

Shah Cement Industries is the largest cement producing plant in Bangladesh, with a capacity of 8.0Mt/yr. The company is part of the Abul Khair Group, the largest business conglomerate in Bangladesh. It produces three main cement products including CEM II – Portland Composite Cement and CEM –III Blast Furnace Cement. Both products use slag.

Ireland: Ecocem says that its slag cement products have saved 10Mt of CO₂ emissions compared to regular cement since it started trading in 2002. It produces cement products from ground granulated blastfurnace slag (GGBS). It says its GGBS cement has a carbon footprint of 32kg CO₂/t compared to 850 - 900kg CO₂/t for Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC). The Irish company operates four plants in Europe with a production capacity of 2.4Mt/yr.

Italy: Finland’s Tapojärvi has signed a contract to supply slag handling and metal recovery services at ThyssenKrupp’s Acciai Speciali Terni steel mill. Tapojärvi Italia will build a slag-handling unit and then start to produce and develop slag-based products. The contract consists of two-year period of building the unit and 10 years of operating time with additional option for another 10 years of operations.

“We have innovative and cost efficient solutions to meet the challenges steel mills have around the world. We productise industrial by-products and develop new business opportunities around these materials all the time,” said Mari Pilventö, the chief executive officer (CEO) of Tapojärvi Oy.

Italy/UK: Ametek Land in the UK has collaborated with Italy’s Danieli on its automatic tapping system to increase operation safety and improve process control for steel plants. The Danieli Automatic Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) Tapping System product allows complete furnace tapping remotely from the main pulpit of a steel plant. The system starts furnace tilting in automatic mode, controlling the furnace position during the complete tapping process.

Embedded within the system are two thermal imaging systems from Ametek Land: its Slag Detection System (SDS-E), branded as Danieli’s Q-Slag, and a near-infrared (NIR) fixed thermal imager that is part of the Ladle Level Detection (LLD) system. The thermal imaging systems are used in conjunction with Danieli software to control steel flow in real time.

Q-Slag makes use of an SDS-E imager to detect the transition between steel and slag. It also quantifies the amount of slag that may pass into the ladle. That information is useful for fine-tuning alloys and lime additions for the secondary metallurgy. In parallel with Q-Slag, the LLD system controls when steel inside the teeming ladle has reached pre-set level positions. Back tilting can be done either in automatic mode (when the pre-conditions regarding steel level and weight are met) or by remote intervention of the EAF operator from the main pulpit.

Ametek Land says that its Slag Detection System can improve operator response times and steel consistency at the end of each tap. Those improvements typically result in up to a 25% reduction in slag depths, compared with traditional methods of stream monitoring.

Danieli designs plants and manufactures and installs machines for the metals industry covering the entire production cycle from raw ore to finished steel products. Ametek Land manufactures monitors and analysers for industrial infrared non-contact temperature measurement, combustion efficiency and environmental pollutant emissions.