R E V I E W N O.

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Petcoke Combustion Characteristics

Reprint of article published
in World Cement, April 2002.
By Gary R. Roy, F.L.Smidth Inc., USA.

Gary R Roy, F.L.Smidth, USA, examines the way in which the combustion
of petcoke has had an effect on modern calciner and burner designs.

Introduction
Cement producers all over the world are
striving to lower their production costs,
one effective method of which is the
substitution of traditional fuels such as
coal, oil and natural gas with petcoke.
However, as many producers have experienced, the use of petcoke as a fuel presents several challenges that must be
addressed. Its high sulfur content can
present operational difficulties if not
properly addressed, and the fact that it
burns at a much slower rate than normal
coals means that for many existing kiln
systems it is not possible to fire 100%
petcoke in the kiln and calciner without
special design considerations.
Many of the classical FLS calciners
have been successfully retrofitted to
enable petcoke firing, and new plants
specifically designed to enable 100%
petcoke firing have recently been commissioned. This article highlights the
equipment and the experience from several plants that have been designed or
modified by F.L.Smidth to enable 100%
petcoke firing.

Figure 1. Recommended fineness for pulverised fuels.

Petcoke as fuel
Petroleum coke is the solid residue that
remains after extraction of all valuable
liquid and gaseous components from
crude oil. The volatile content range is
typically 5 - 15%, depending on the coking process. The main difficulty in burning petcoke is its low reactivity due to
this low volatile content. This low reactivity can be compensated for in a number of ways, such as finer grinding, high
momentum rotary kiln burner design
and calciner design.
One traditional solution is to grind
the coke to a much finer residue than
standard coal. Figure 1 shows the

Figure 2. Duoflex burner.

Reprinted from W ORLD CEMENT April 2002

%O2

ppm CO

ppm NOx

Stage I

3.8

292

631

Stage IV

2.5

44

560

Loop duct outlet

3.2

150

560

Calciner outlet

3.8

765

530

Calciner hot zone

4.3

1352

540

Riser duct

0.6

32 000

615

Kiln exit

2.5

955

Figure 3. Operation of ILC with 100% petcoke firing.

relationship between the volatile content of the fuel

and the required fineness to enable good combustion in the kiln and calciner.
Most petcokes have a high sulfur content. High
sulfur petcoke is sold at a low price but may require
extra precautions in the cement kiln. Operational
problems, due to the increased internal sulfur circulation in the kiln system that results, may often be
solved by burner design and operational mode, or by
returning dust to the upper end of the rotary kiln.

Ignition, combustion and

burnout characteristics
The initial de-volatilisation and combustion of the volatile matter in the
coke particles is very fast, whereas the
combustion of the residual coke may
then require several seconds to complete. The burning rate of an individual
char particle depends primarily on its
size (dp), the amount of oxygen present
in the local atmosphere and the local
temperature (T).
In the very high temperatures of
the flame in the rotary kiln, the combustion rate is determined by the diffusion of the oxygen molecules
towards the surface of the shrinking
char particle against the wind of CO
and CO2. At these temperatures, the
main influence of the burnout time
will be the size of the particle and the
amount of oxygen present. A high
momentum burner, such as the
Duoflex kiln burner depicted in Figure
2, which provides a vigorous mixing
of the particles with the local atmosphere, increases the probability that
the char particle will encounter oxygen to facilitate the quick burnout.
In the calciner, the temperature
cannot exceed the equilibrium temperature for calcination (850 - 900 C),
as long as a reasonable amount of carbonate is present. At this moderate
temperature level, even a relatively
fine ground petcoke meal burns so
slowly that the heat produced is used
immediately for calcining. The reaction rate is controlled by the speed in
which oxygen combines with carbon
on the particle surface. The reaction
between the oxygen and the char particle is the limiting factor, and the
burnout time will be roughly proportional to dp. It will therefore require a
calciner with a considerable retention
time to complete the combustion
process before the exit of the calciner.
As the combustion rate doubles
every time T is raised by 70 C, it can be
a great advantage to have a localised
hot zone in the calciner to promote
faster combustion.

Petcoke firing in the in-line calciner (ILC)

In an ILC calciner, the kiln exhaust gases pass up
through the riser duct and into the calciner vessel.
Hot air from the cooler is brought to the calciner via
an air duct to provide oxygen for combustion of the
calciner fuel. As the initial average percentage of O2
in the calciner is considerably lower than 21%, and
the average temperature is typically less than 900 C,

Reprinted from W ORLD CEMENT April 2002

it is very difficult to burn a low volatile fuel.

Furthermore, most older ILC calciners on existing systems, designed for coal firing, have a gas retention
time significantly less than 3 sec. Under these conditions, it is not possible to burn 100% petcoke unless
ground to an extreme fineness, and then only if other
measures are taken.
FLS has used experience from several ILC plants
that have been converted to petcoke firing. In these
cases, a portion of the petcoke is introduced directly
into the tertiary air duct before it has mixed with the
kiln gas. As such, it is an advantage to have a high efficiency cooler so that the tertiary air temperature will
be as high as possible to promote ignition. The
remaining petcoke is distributed into the lower cone
section of the calciner. The raw meal is added above
the cone section and distributed along the walls of
the calciner by means of the double deflector in order
to provide a relatively raw meal free hot zone. A
small portion of the raw meal can be diverted to the
riser duct to limit build-ups. In these cases, the petcoke must still be ground to a fineness of approximately 1% retained on 90 microns.
FLS recently commissioned a new ILC kiln specifically
designed to fire 100% petcoke. In this case, the retention time of the calciner was designed to be
7 sec by means of a long loop duct between the main
calciner vessel and the bottom stage. All of the fuel was
injected into the kiln riser duct. The petcoke had a
volatile content of 18%, and was ground to 7% retained
on 90 microns. The meal from the second lowest cyclone
is split between the riser duct and the top of the calciner lower cone to create the hot zone in order to facilitate the combustion of the petcoke. The notch in the
centre of the calciner and the sharp bend in the top of
the loop duct promote mixing of the calciner gases to
aid in the complete burnout of the fuel. Gas measurements reveal that although the CO level is very high in
the bottom of the calciner, the CO exiting the bottom
stage was less than 50 ppm, and the residual carbon (%
C) in the bottom stage material stream was 0.06%,
which indicates almost complete combustion (Figure 3).

from the second lowest cyclone of the C-string

between the lower and upper calciner sections.
F.L.Smidth has a reference of several SLC-S 100%
petcoke fired plants and a 100% anthracite-fired
plant, which is a fuel that is even more difficult to
burn than petcoke.
An SLC plant with two calciners was recently converted to 100% petcoke firing. The modification
included the addition of diverter gates to split the
meal between the lower and upper portions of the
calciner and the riser duct, restrictions in the centre
of the calciner and lowering the solid fuel injection
points in the calciners (Figure 4).
In the kilns used today, the calciners are 100%
fired with petcoke containing 5% volatiles and
6.74% S, which is ground to a fineness of 0.5%
residue on the 90 micron sieve. The hot zones of the
calciners are operated at 1050 C, and the gas retention time is 3 sec. The main burner fuel is a mixture of
petcoke, anthracite and lignite, adjusted so that the
SO3 of the clinker is close to 1.6%. The clinker production rate is 10 200 tpd at a fuel consumption of
725 kcal/kg clinker.
Two 5600 tpd SLC kilns are also firing 100% petcoke. In these kilns, the meal is again divided so that
the hot zone is created, and they are able to have
stable operation even with the coke, which contains
only 11% volatiles and is ground to a fineness of only
9 - 12% retained on the 90 micron sieve.

Calciners tailor-made for

low volatile fuels
The SLC-D system features a down draught calciner
(DDC), in which there is a downward flow of gas,
raw meal and fuel. The combustion air containing
21% O2 carries the raw meal in suspension, where it
is introduced tangentially at the top of the calciner.
This tangential action causes the raw meal to travel in
a spiral movement close to the cylinder wall, protecting the walls from the high temperature zone. The
fuel is fired from the top in a Duoflex burner, which
creates a well-mixed flame in the centre of the

Petcoke firing in separate

line calciners (SLC)
FLS has been able to burn petcoke in a large number of existing SLC calciners. Again, a hot
zone is created; this time by
dividing the calciner vessel into
two sections, with only a portion
of the raw meal flow directed to
the lower section. This results in a
lower raw meal concentration in
the bottom section, which facilitates a high temperature so that
the petcoke will burn at a sufficient rate.
This double calciner solution
is fairly easily implemented in
most SLC plants, whenever there
is ample height for the splitter
gate to divide the raw meal

Figure 4. Modification of SLC for 100% petcoke firing.

Reprinted from W ORLD CEMENT April 2002

Figure 5. Operating data from 100% petcoke fired SLC-D kiln.

calciner vessel. The very high combustion rate is due

to the high flame temperature that is only possible in
the raw meal free atmosphere (Figure 5).
The outlet from the down draught calciner is connected with the kiln riser pipe. The rotational motion
of the calciner output provides efficient mixing
between the hot combustion gases, raw meal and the
kiln gas flow. The calcined raw meal separated to the
kiln obtains a high degree of calcination, for example

in one plant 95% calcination was achieved, with only

845 C in the lowermost cyclone.
The DDC arrangement is also easily retrofitted
into an existing SP or ILC system to help boost production or adapt for the firing of low volatile fuels.
The first 100% petcoke fired DDC was inserted in
a kiln line producing white clinker. The high degree
of combustion 99.8% is attained, although the combustion air/tertiary air is only 280 C. Unlike grey
cement plants, white pyroprocessing systems cannot
retrieve 800 - 900 C hot air from the clinker cooler.
The calciner must make do with warm air generated
by a heat exchanger using preheater exit gas. The
preheated raw meal from the second lowest cyclone
is split between the kiln riser pipe and the tertiary
air riser leading up to the calciner. With this
arrangement, the raw meal is actually preheating
the combustion air prior to its entry into the DDC
(Figure 5). This is the ultimate case that shows that
the final design of the calciner, and the ability to
create and maintain a hot zone, are the critical components in enabling a calciner to burn 100% petcoke efficiently.

Bibliography
HUNDEBL S., Recent advancement in petroleum coke use for
cement manufacturing, Proceedings of International Exhibition
and Seminar on Energy and Environment in Cement, Construction
and Allied Sectors, January 2002, New Delhi, India.
KAPLAN E. & NEDDER N., Petroleum Coke Utilisation for Cement
Kiln Firing, Proceedings of 2001 IEEE meeting in Vancouver, 251.
KEEFE, B.P., Plant Modernization Projects Employ New Calciner
Designs, International Cement Journal, January 1997, 40-46.

Reprinted from W ORLD CEMENT April 2002

Data in this brochure is intended for preliminary project planing only. Manufacturer reserves the right to modify equipment details and/or specifications without notice.

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