A comprehensive investigation of a grinding unit to reduce energy consumption, environmental effects and costs of a cement factory, a case study in Türkiye

Türkiye is the largest cement producer of Europe and the second biggest cement exporter in the world. The industry is responsible for more than 8% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and around 15% of the primary energy consumed worldwide. In this paper, the specific energy consumption (SEC) and related emissions of a real scale cement factory currently running in Türkiye have been decreased by investigating the effects of moisture rate of the raw materials and the hot gas transfer to the grinding unit. The data has been collected in the factory site by using the monitoring equipment and real time detection over a 24-month period. Energy and exergy destructions and exergetic cost distributions are determined by using specific exergy costing method (SPECO) for all units of the factory. The specific exergetic consumption (SExC) and production (MC) costs of raw meal are calculated to be 5.05 $/GJ and 4.13 $/ton, respectively. It is investigated that the hot gas supply to the grinding unit and decreasing the moisture rate of feeding materials decreased the SPECO of raw meal, clinker and cement by 8.25%, 5.49% and 4.89% respectively. The applications provide 184.69 MJ reduction in specific energy consumption (SEC) per ton of cement produced and blocked 75,343.37 tons of CO2 emissions per year and reduced the cement production cost to 40.47 $/ton corresponding to a saving of $2.06 M per year. It has been demonstrated that it is very important to keep the moisture content of raw materials used in the cement industry as low as possible in terms of reducing energy consumption and manufacturing costs for sustainable production.