Many gather to celebrate Mannok’s FUELFLEX® Pyrolyzer installation

This game-changing technology has enabled Mannok to control NOx emissions without needing to use ammonia water and increase alternative fuels utilisation, thus putting the plant firmly on the path to achieve its 2030 Vision target of reducing CO₂ emissions by 33% compared to 2020 levels.  

Shared sustainability goals

The FUELFLEX® Pyrolyzer was initially dreamt up in FLSmidth’s research and development facility in Dania, where engineers were exploring the potential of gasification to reduce carbon emissions. Once the concept reached a certain point of development, Project Manager Lars Skaarup Jensen took it to Mannok as a co-development project.

“The solutions to ensure a sustainable tomorrow require genuine collaboration today. Mannok Cement and FLSmidth have prospered from a decades long relationship of trust, mutual respect and shared goals - critical ingredients for a complex co-development project,” explains Lars. “Because both companies had the perseverance to overcome every single detail, we have now introduced game changing technology which will make a significant impact for Mannok’s plant as well as cement producers all around the world.”

Waste into fuel

Mannok was already using solid recovered fuel produced from waste diverted from landfill, but was limited as to how much they could burn due to build-up in the process. 
The FUELFLEX® Pyrolyzer effectively reorganises the combustion process to create a more efficient method of alternative fuels utilisation that doesn’t have this problem. Recovered fuels are introduced with the preheated raw meal – effectively using hot meal as the gasification medium. The fuel is therefore pyrolyzed, not burned. This creates a more stable kiln process; it enables greater use of moist solid recovered fuel (SRF) – which is what Mannok is dealing with – and it completely eliminates the need for ammonia to mitigate NOx, which represents both a cost and safety benefit.

Lower-carbon cement production

Kevin Lunney, Chief Operations Officer for Mannok, says the cost saving of replacing coal with waste fuels would have been enough to justify the project, but that’s not why Mannok agreed to partner with FLSmidth. “What we’re really chasing is a lower carbon end product – that’s what our customers want, and it’s what we want. The FUELFLEX has already enabled us to reduce our carbon emissions. We expect to be at near-zero coal on the preheater within the next 12 months.”
 

This project, both the technology as well as the close collaboration with a key customer to reduce the carbon intensity of cement production, exemplifies our Green’26 strategy. The full commercial launch of the FUELFLEX® Pyrolyzer is planned for 2024/2025.