Combustion of petroleum coke dust as a partial substitute for natural gas and oil in the alumina trihydrate calcination process

Conference · Tue Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1996

OSTI ID:371948

Desgroseillers, B; Perron, J ^[1]; Laurin, P; Menard, O; Martin, J ^[2]

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1. Alcan International Ltd., Jonquiere, Quebec (Canada)
2. Societe de`Electrolyse et de Chimie Alcan Ltee, Jonquiere, Quebec (Canada)

In the Saguenay region, Alcan operates two coke calcination rotary kilns to supply with calcined coke its prebaked anode and Soderberg paste smelters. The annual production is approximately 220,000 t of calcined coke. For the last few years, the unwanted emissions of under calcined coke dust (UCCD) emitted from the kilns along with the hot gas reaches approximately 16,000 t per year. A maximum of 6,000 t of UCCD are recycled in fabrication processes. In the search of new possibilities to recycle and sell the remaining 10,000 t the possibility of using this UCCD as a heating source ion other processes has emerged, particularly for the calcination of alumina trihydrate. A feasibility study on the combustion as well as a plant trial showed the benefits of burning this UCCD in two 60 t/h capacity calcination units. In fact, appreciable savings in natural gas or oil, as well as increased energetic efficiency (gain of 6%) were observed in the calcination units. Furthermore, the impact on quality of the metallurgical alumina is negligible. These results can be explained partly by the use of a solid combustible which presents longer combustion time compared to natural gas. The combustion zones are therefore extended, favoring the heat transfer to the solid during calcination.

• OSTI ID: 371948
• Report Number(s): CONF-960202--; ISBN 0-87339-312-0
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

02 PETROLEUM
36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
AIR
ALUMINIUM OXIDES
CHEMICAL ANALYSIS
COKE
ECONOMICS
ENVIRONMENT
FIELD TESTS
IMPURITIES
KILNS
KINETICS
NATURAL GAS
PRODUCTION
PRODUCTIVITY
WASTE PRODUCT UTILIZATION