ETEX and Promat install two super-heated steam dryers
A long-term collaboration resulting in two steam drying lines at Promat, Tisselt
- High-precision control
- 20 to 50 % reduced energy consumption
- Heat treatment up to 5 MW
- Safe automated operation
- Smart electrification with heat pump
- 100% water recuperation
Energy-efficient and hyper-precise drying of construction materials
Like many other industries, the building materials sector grapples with the balancing act between sustainability, technicality and profitability. Due to its traditionally energy-intensive production processes, the industry's cost of energy entails on average 20% of their total spending. The drying process in particular consumes a large part of this energy cost, because large quantities of water need to evaporate. In order to reach the right moisture level in the end product, which is critical for construction materials such as bricks or fire-resistant panels, drying technology needs to be hyper-precise. On top of that, the sector cannot escape the trend towards decarbonisation. Finally, the nature of drying implies high temperatures, and therefore a safe production process is paramount.
In search of an innovative solution, Promat and ETEX called upon CEE. Promat is the Belgian fire-resistant building materials and high-temperature insulation division of ETEX, a group specialising in the production of building materials. In alignment with their ambitious decarbonisation goals, the group collaborated with us to co-develop an innovative treatment and drying process in an atmosphere of 100% super-heated steam (SHS). Thanks to our expertise and full-scale section lab, we were able to expedite the transition from test to full-scale application in a four-month timespan.
ETEX decarbonisation goal: 35% reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission intensity by 2030.
Promat produces up to 7 million m² of fire protection solutions on a yearly basis, such as fire-resistant building panels. Their drying process needs to meet the following criteria:
- Evaporation of up to 70kg of water per board or panel, to a precise %
- Homogeneous drying across boards of 2m50 by 1m20
- Thicknesses from 20 to 85mm
- A capacity of 3 metric tons of water evaporation per hour
- Development and reproduction of an optimal drying recipe for quality and performance
The cleantech that we built around Promat's products is truly groundbreaking and exhibits impressivebenefits:
- Unprecedented levels of precision, down to 1% tolerance on moisture level
- Reduction of energy consumption up to 50%
- Automated operation
- Potential of 100% decarbonisation
- In support of ETEX' SBTi goals
- Continuous monitoring of performance and efficiency, with direct intervention by CEE for optimisation
Specifically, CEE designedtwo large-scale super-heated steam dryer lines.
Key features of the new installation:
Line 1:
- High-precision control
- 20-50% lower energy consumption than conventional dryer
- Reduction of natural gas consumption with 30%
- Safe automated operation
- Capacity: 2,4 ton/h – footprint: 60m x 8m x 7m
Line 2
- High-precision control
- Smart electrification with integrated heat pumps
- 50% lower energy consumption
- 72% CO2 reduction, with the potential of evolving to 100% decarbonisation
- Safe automated operation
- 100% water recuperation
- Capacity: 2,4 ton/h – footprint: 52m x 7m x 7m
“This innovative drying concept has the potential to eliminate gas completely.”
High precision
We built an SHS drying tunnel with eight separate drying zones. Temperatures, moisture content and recirculation speed of every zone are controlled for precise reproduction of the recipe over the length of the tunnel.
This SHS treatment of fire protection construction materials preserves a very precise quantity of moisture in the material, allowing fire-resistant performance in the most stringent conditions and increasing quality and robustness of the final product.
Steam drying allows for better control of the process, more homogeneous results and an improved quality in general.
Energy-efficient
Many traditional industrial drying processes use air to extract moisture from the product. This is an energy-intensive method. The cooled and moist air is expelled with at best recovery of some of the energy to the air inlet. The dry air mass flow at exit temperature defines the heat losses, and thus the energy consumed by the process.
By switching to SHS drying and reducing the use of fresh air significantly, CEE's solution reduces Promat's energy consumption by 20 to 50% in comparison to hot air drying. It also simplifies latent heat-recovery of the vapor produced. In combination with solutions like high-temperature heat-pumps and mechanical vapor recompression (MVR), our technology can recover up to 95% of process energy. For the second drying line, in total 900 kW of heat is recovered from the evaporated water and re-injected with 150kW input to the heat pump.
Decarbonisation
Thanks to the radical energy reduction by the switch to steam-drying, this technology also allows for a complete process electrification. When combined with renewable energy sources, it is an economically viable way to achieve 100% decarbonisation in industrial drying processes. In other words: it's a highly effective and beneficial avenue towards net zero. Not just for drying construction materials such as brick, gypsum blocks or fibre cement panels, but also for industrial drying in other sectors such as the food and beverage industry.
Minimal downtime
The modular design of the two drying lines enables maximum premanufacture off-site and reduced time of assembly on-site. It also allows for easy maintenance, sustainable life-cycle management and an overall reduced downtime.
A preventative maintenance schedule was developed and is executed meticulously by CEE. Since startup and commissioning of the first line in 2018, there has been no occurrence of unscheduled stops.
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