Waste heat recovery from clinker cooler for seawater desalination

The utilization of waste heat has been practised in cement works for many years. However, the clinker cooler exhaust air is being used for the first time in India to generate steam for a seawater desalination plant. The plant installed at the Gujarat cement works of Larsen & Toubro contributes to the production of 2040 m(3)/day of demineralized water from seawater. Hot exhaust air from the clinker cooler at about 270degrees C is cooled to about 170degreesC in a waste heat recovery steam generator (WHRSG). The plant has now been in operation for more than three years and contributes to the production of water in an area in which water is a precious commodity. The plant was installed in an existing cement works, so a number of factors, such as operation of the clinker cooler, configuration and installation. of the equipment, machinery and gas ducts, had to be taken into account during the design of the waste heat boiler. State-of-the-art techniques, such as pinch point analysis, finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics, were used in the design.