RE:Evaluation of usage of plasma torches in cement productionVenator ... Thanks for sharing. Notice that a recent paper by PYR's Pierre Carabin is dated of 2019. That's quite recent.
Here's the passage that you were referring to, in your initial post:
An advantage of replacing conventional burners with plasma torches, other than decreased greenhouse gas emissions from replacing combustion, is that the operating costs can decrease, according to a comparison performed by L. Rao, F. Rivard and P. Carabin [17] on a 2 MW fuel oil burner and a 2 MW air plasma torch. They state several reasons why the operating costs are lower, including decreased costs of heat production due to fuel consumption being replaced by cheaper electricity. Secondly, no more handling and extraction of fuels would be necessary, meaning less process equipment utilisation and manpower. Thirdly the volumetric flow of gas could decrease which means that the cost of off-gas treatment decreases. 11 2. Theory The amount of off-gas can decrease with up to 80% compared to the off-gas amount from using conventional burners. [17] The decreased amount of gas would also have downsides, mainly a decreased convection contribution, although the increased temperatures of the flame could lead to increased radiation, if the gas used is radiant. However, particles have large radiative characteristics and are a large contribution to the radiation of a flame, and particle injections in a plasma can be very difficult due to the high viscosity, which means that the amount of radiation would still possibly decrease due to the lack of particles. Having no combustion will lead to no ash production and less foreign trace elements exiting the stack, however the ash is used as an additive in the cement, so without it the chemical composition of the raw meal has to be adjusted. [1] A plasma does not contaminate the process environment and therefore ensures a high purity of the product. [18]
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Venator - (8/23/2021 1:16:54 AM) Evaluation of usage of plasma torches in cement production A fun read. Unsure if this has been posted before; however, I am sure it has knowing this group. Interesting to see that the author quotes L. Rao, F. Rivard and P. Carabin. Wonder if they were involved? PPP is not kidding when he says they are the experts in plasma.
https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/257463/257463.pdf
https://publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/257463/257463.pdf Slowly, multiple industries are going to be considering, exploring, understanding, needing these plasma torches to offset emissions and bring down costs. Expect to see a snowball effect and when you add all the maintenance contracts for parts afterwards, it will be a revenue generator unlike any other.
Give this stock 5-10 years.... shifting technologies, once they start to become adopted, create an incredible advantage to the companies with the foresight to spend the money to adopt them. The rest are forced to catch up out of survival. Look at electric cars as a recent example and the sudden adoption by all manafacturers to update their lines. Food for thought.
DYODD