Saurashtra Cement Ltd, Ranavav is a dry process cement plant using state of the art Pre-calciner Technology that consists of In Line Calciner (ILC) as well as Separate Line Calciner (SLC) for the pyro-processing.
The stages involved in production of Ordinary Portland cement are:
1. Crushing - Crushing of lime stone & other additives from lumps to smaller sized fractions
2. Raw Meal Grinding & Blending - Fine grinding of raw materials & its Homogenization
3. Pyro-processing - Pyro-processing raw meal to form Portland cement clinker
4. Cement Grinding - Fine grinding of clinker with gypsum and other additives
5. Packing and Loading - Filling of cement in bags & Bulkers
Cement grade limestone is fragmented from the naturally occurring deposit at the limestone mines and crushed to a uniform and usable size. It is blended with certain additives (such as Marl, iron sludge, Fluorspar, Basalt, Sand Stone, bauxite etc.) and processed in the vertical roller mill, where the raw materials in the desired ratios, are ground to fine powder called raw meal.
The raw meal is subjected to further homogenization. The homogenized raw meal thus extracted is fed to the top of the suspension pre-heater where the material is subjected to uniform heating using the hot gases from the Kiln. Thus the raw meal undergoes a process of calcination in the suspension pre-heater as well as the pre-calcinatory (in which the carbonates present are reduced to oxides).
The calcination process is well controlled and a uniformly calcined material enters the Kiln where the various chemical reactions takes place at higher temperatures, in the range of 1,450°C and 1,500°C.
The clinker formed is cooled and conveyed to the clinker hoppers/Storage yard from where it is extracted and transported to the cement mills for fine grinding, along with suitable additives under controlled conditions for producing cement. For producing OPC, clinker and gypsum are used and for producing Portland Pozzolana Cement ("PPC"), clinker, gypsum and fly ash are used.