Displaying items by tag: Austria

Austria: Lafarge Zementwerke used alternative fuel (AF) in 96% of the fuel mix at its Retznei, Styria, cement plant throughout 2021. CEO Berthold Kren congratulated the plant’s team on its ‘outstanding performance’ in phasing out fossil fuels. Kren added that the plant has also led the way in construction waste recycling.

Costa Rica: Geocycle Costa Rica has commissioned a XR3000C type shredder supplied by Austria-based Untha. The unit will be used to process locally sorted municipal solid waste (MSW) and hazardous and non-hazardous Industrial Solid Waste (ISW) into refuse-derived fuel (RDF) for use at Holcim Costa Rica’s integrated cement plant.

“Having worked with Untha in other countries, the XR3000C was chosen for its flexibility, high-capacity and single step alternative fuel capabilities. We also knew it would be supported by a world-class engineering team,” said Geocycle’s general manager Wilkie Mora Bolanos.

Geocycle is the waste processing subsidiary of Switzerland-based LafargeHolcim. There are currently over 20 Untha shredders in operation in Geocycle facilities worldwide.

Austria: Loesche subsidiary A TEC has won a contract for the supply and installation of a Flash Dryer for alternative fuels (AFs) in the kiln line of Lafarge Zementwerke's 1.1Mt/yr Mannersdorf cement plant in Lower Austria. The supplier said that it will complete the project in early 2021.

The company said, “Reaching high thermal substitution rates (TSR) requires firing of alternative fuels at the kiln burner. To reach a stable sintering zone for the required clinker quality a high fuel quality (high LCV, small particle size) is needed, otherwise the clinker quality may suffer or the TSR can be limited. With the A TEC Flash Dryer various waste heat sources can be used (clinker cooler flue gas, bypass gas, preheater gas, etc.). The material is dosed to the hot gas flow in the flash dryer and transported with this gas flow, while the moisture is evaporated, to a cyclone and a subsequent filter where the fuel is separated from the gas flow and on-line fed to a kiln burner or a satellite burner. In addition to the drying the lifting effect of the gas can separate 3D impurities which contributes in a further increase of the fuel quality.”

Austria: Waste processing specialist Lindner has celebrated the groundbreaking ceremony for its new headquarters. The company says that the 45,000m² site will also encompass a new “state-of-the-art waste processing technology production plant.” It says that the facility will enable it to better serve the industries that depend on its expertise, including the cement sector. “That’s why it is so important to us to constantly expand this know-how, develop new solutions and systematically prepare and pass on the knowledge gained,” it added.

Austria: Untha has announced the supply of an Untha XR3000C mobil-e primary shredder to Austrian Tyre Processes. The supplier says that the model’s twin 132kW motors produce refuse-derived fuel of a homogenous 50mm size, suitable for further processing into a cement fuel additive.

Its director of global business development Gary Moore said, “With the world’s raw materials rapidly depleting – and businesses and consumers alike demanding more environmentally responsible solutions – this is a fantastic example of clever engineering and innovative thinking coming together to change the face of the industry.”

Austria: Andritz has announced its upcoming line of ADuro primary and secondary shredders. The shredders, which it says are ‘for shredding refuse-derived fuels and municipal solid waste, as well as commercial or industrial waste,’ become available in July 2020. Andritz said, “The Andritz automation tools can be tailored to individual customer needs and provide powerful capabilities to monitor machine behaviour and improve plant reliability.”

UK: Austrian shredder producer Lindner has released details about the installation of a Polaris 1800 shredder on the island of Guernsey in the English Channel. The machine was installed in early 2019 on behalf of Island Waste, part of the Guernsey Recycling Group, to produce solid recovered fuels (SRF). Upon delivery challenges had to be overcome including limited availability of hoisting equipment. At present he shredder processes around 8t/hr of municipal waste into SRF.

Australia: Focus Enviro, a waste and organic equipment specialist, has secured an exclusive agreement with Austria’s Untha, making it the distribution partner for Untha’s shredding technology in Australia. Focus has its headquartered in New South Wales and it has a presence in Victoria, Queensland and the west of the country.

Untha’s director for global business development, Gary Moore, described Australia as one of the most exciting energy from waste markets in the world despite alternative fuel production being less developed than in Europe. “Landfill rates are rising, environmental pressures are mounting, China’s landmark movement has forced a new direction for the country’s waste framework, and a number of international waste operators, with a presence in Australia, are driving a global knowledge transfer programme to strengthen resource security,” said Moore.

South Korea: Austria's A Tec is installing two RM 2.50 Rocket Mills at Ssangyong Cement’s plants in Donghae and Yeongwol. The mills will be used to shred municipal and industrial waste to produce solid alternative fuels for use in the plant’s kilns. No commissioning dates have been released.

Poland: Sweden’s NextFuel AB plans to launch NextFuel, a briquette fuel made from elephant grass, at the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP24) taking place in Katowice. The company says that its product is cheaper than and oil and coal in most markets and could be used to replace some or all of the coal normally used by a cement plant, coal plant or a steel plant. Its first operational plant is based in Austria.

The first NextFuel project is expected to reduce the CO₂ footprint of a cement factory in East Africa by 105% compared to the coal it is using at present. The cement plant also expects to cut its energy costs in half by using NextFuel instead of coal imported from South Africa. It will be able to grow Elephant Grass, the source of the fuel, next to the plant to reduce its fuel transportation costs.

Elephant Grass is a perennial tropical plant that can produce several crops in a year. Once the grass has been harvested, NextFuel says its technology requires ‘very little’ energy to produce a briquette. The company asserts that due to a quick carbon cycle and the storage of carbon, less CO₂ is released into the atmosphere when the fuel is burned than was captured from the atmosphere a few months earlier when the grass was growing. NextFuel says that annually the carbon cycle becomes negative.

After the grass is harvested, it is dried and fed into a patented reactor. This is a rotary drum, indirectly heated and operated with a low oxygen atmosphere. While inside that drum, volatile elements are separated from the grass, and the physical properties together with the energy content are transformed in less than 30 minutes. The reactor also drives out the off-gases from the grass. They are used as surplus energy to produce heat or electricity to power the facility. After the reactor is finished, the fuel is densified and turned into briquettes that are cooled. These briquettes are ready to use directly as a CO₂ negative fossil fuel substitute both in industrial and electricity production.

NextFuel plans to scale by licensing its technology to companies all around the world.