CIRCFUEL

As global climate goals drive industrial decarbonisation efforts, some sectors pose a more significant challenge than others. These hard-to-abate sectors traditionally include cement production, although several technologies exist to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint, including using alternative refuse-derived solid fuels to replace fossil fuels like coal and petcoke. The marine sector is another industry considered hard to abate, relying primarily on petroleum-based liquid fuels. The CircFuel project offers a carbon abatement pathway to both sectors.

Fuller’s FUELFLEX Pyrolyzer lies at the heart of the CircFuel project’s ambition. The technology allows cement plants to replace calciner fuel with alternative refuse-derived solid fuels, delivering an efficient, low-carbon process heat supply while ensuring complete fuel combustion and high NOx control. The first commercial FUELFLEX installation is successfully operating at Mannok Cement, Ireland.

The CircFuel process offers several potential benefits to cement producers. It may provide a route for reducing fossil fuel consumption in the main kiln – overcoming traditional hurdles to alternative fuel use here. In addition, pyrolysis oil production and sale might offer cement plants an alternative revenue stream while supporting the decarbonisation of other hard-to-abate sectors.

The most carbon benefit will likely be gained when the CircFuel process diverts waste from landfills. This avoids methane emissions and helps manage the global swelling of municipal waste production in many parts of the world.