Ceramic tile manufacture requires a great quantity of energy, mainly in the form of heat.
The heat is principally used in the kilns and dryers, and it is obtained by natural gas
combustion.
The increasing cost of natural gas, as well as the application of a new gas tax, the new
legislation in regard to emissions trading, and the difficult current economic situation
have driven the ceramic tile sector to implement energy-saving actions in the production
process with the twofold aim of reducing energy costs and abating carbon dioxide
emissions.
One such course of action is the European project REDUCER, funded by the European
Commission and led by Azulev S.A.U., in which the Instituto de Tecnología Cerámica
(ITC) also participates. This project seeks to implement energy-saving actions in
company kilns and dryers in order to lower natural gas consumption and reduce carbon
dioxide emissions in the tile manufacturing process.
One of the saving actions envisaged is the installation of a system of waste heat recovery
from one of the company kilns to the tile body dryers. This new waste heat recovery
system is to be added to and will complement the already existing system at the
company, thus achieving maximum heat recovery from the kiln stacks. The recovered
heat will go entirely to the green tile body dryers, thus reducing natural gas consumption
in the dryers.
The designed installation seeks to recover 600 kW heat from the stacks of one of the
kilns, entailing a natural gas saving of more than 120 k€/year and suppressing the
emission into the atmosphere of 720 tons of CO2/year, savings that are to be added to
those attained with other energy-saving measures.
This paper describes the energy-saving actions implemented at the company, as well as
the resulting energy savings
