Elements for the Design of Experimental Plant for LC³ Cement Production

Associated with cement manufacturing processes, large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO₂) are released into the atmosphere, and it is estimated that between 0.65 and 0.90 tons of CO₂ are emitted per ton of cement manufactured. By 2050, the demand for this binder is expected to exceed 5000 million tons, which would contribute to an increase of more than 3% of emissions. However, the emissions can be reduced by using supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs); in this sense, calcined clays have a great potential for the reduction of emissions in the manufacture of cement. This has been studied in recent years with low carbon cement or LC³, developed by a joint team of the University of Lausanne and the Central University of Las Villas. The main results are the expansion of production by achieving clinker substitutions of up to 50%. In this sense, the Center for Research and Development of Technologies and Materials (CIDEM) in conjunction with the company IPIAC NERY has committed to the development of a small pilot plant that makes the manufacture of limited quantities of LC³, which allows the study of the process by interacting different sources of raw materials. In this paper, some calculations were for designing a pilot plant, taking into account the balance of mass and energy necessary for its proper functioning, which in turn allows to specify the technology for the scaling of the production in any new industrial plant or adaptation of capacities installed.