Work is underway to commission a solid recovered fuel (SRF) manufacturing plant in Vietnam, for one of the world’s leading cement and aggregates specialists, Switzerland-based Holcim.
The plant will process solid footwear production waste from the country’s main shoe factory, to create a fossil fuel substitute that will power Holcim’s local cement kiln calciner.
Following a global search for the best-fit technology for this complex facility, Holcim decided on a single-step SRF solution from Waste to Energy (WtE) shredding specialists UNTHA. The system comprises an anti-explosive Atex-specification XR3000 Cutter waste shredder with two 113kW motors, conveyor, over-band magnet, control room and water-powered fire suppression technology. It is capable of processing up to 10 metric tons of material an hour to produce an 80 millimeter (3.14-inch) fuel with high calorific value. Metals will be liberated and extracted for recycling.
The entire plant was fully pre-fabricated and pre-assembled in Salzburg (Austria) for acceptance testing by Holcim Vietnam, the client and Holcim’s Swiss-based technical support group. Having witnessed the technology’s capabilities first-hand, the group saw it didn’t just meet the size performance requirement, it exceeded it, with 97 percent of materials consistently achieving the required particle size. The continuous rotor speed during this rigorous testing also proved the system’s robustness. The plant has now been shipped to Vietnam by sea freight, and is expected to be fully operational by September 2015.
Providing further detail behind the development of this system, Christian Lanner, Austria-based UNTHA’s head of engineering and product management explains, “This footwear production waste is an incredibly difficult product to shred, due to the mixture of notoriously tough materials contained within sports shoes. We’re tackling rubber, textiles, plastics, metals, sponge, reinforcements and more. However, we extensively configured, re-engineered and trialled our flexible XR waste shredder – using the client’s own material – until it was perfectly suited to this application.
“We’ve also refined the cutting concept so that it is incredibly well equipped to deal with this demanding waste stream.”
