IMERYS Industrial Minerals Greece Single-Member Société Anonyme

The project’s goal is two-fold:

a.to reduce energy (heavy fuel oil) consumption by an average of  6-7% (also reducing CO2 emissions by 600 tonnes/year), and
b. to produce 0,8 M3/hour water for industrial use

Numbers are as follows:

• An average of 310 kw of heat is recovered from the exhaust gases of the Tsigrado dryer.
• Around 0,8 M3/hour water for industrial purposes is produced by cooling the flue gas from approx. 70-80◦ C down to 40◦ C. The total production of water for 4,500 hours of operation is 3,600 M3!

The local community and environment of Milos island, where the company operates since many decades, benefit from the implementation of this method.

The project was launched mid 2015 and after almost two years of R&D studies and preparations, it was first implemented in May 2017.

Big part of the IMERYS plants’ processes in Milos is Perlite and Bentonite Drying through the evaporation of moisture contained in them.

Drying is implemented through industrial Fluidized Bed Dryers consuming heavy fuel oil. Total consumption of heavy fuel oil in IMERYS Milos plants is  approx. 10,000 tons/ year (particularly at the MILOS, Tsigrado perlite process plant, heavy fuel oil consumption reaches 1,500 tons/year).

The idea was to reduce consumption of heavy fuel oil by recovering waste heat from the dryer flue gases and use it to preheat air for the fluidization process (only a 20%  fraction of the total stack exhaust is being  used). Through the same process, water is also being recovered by condensation of the materials’ moisture evaporated and absorbed in the flue gases through drying. Water in Milos is deficient (like in almost all Greek islands of the Cyclades) and is therefore produced locally at a desalination plant.

Following a time-consuming research for the appropriate way to minimize heavy fuel oil consumption, we ended up with the proprietary FLUE-ACE CONDENSING FLUE GAS ECONOMIZER system, “hitting two birds with one stone”, as far as the resources efficiency principle is concerned!

The system started operating in May 2017.

In order to educate young people regarding Resources Efficiency, we plan to organize in 2018 an educational program aiming at introducing the primary and secondary schools of Milos in the idea of recovering heat from a dryer and recovering water from the moisture contained in various materials.

For a more detailed description of the system’s operation, please consult the accompanying presentation: FLU-ACE Photo Presentation.pdf

The system was an exclusively in-house project development and is considered an IMERYS proprietary process.

In 2017, 4 people have been occupied with the projects implementation and 400 hours have been spent, while the cost for the current year is estimated to approx. 208.000euro.

IMERYs’ Perite Plant in Tsigrado, MILOS

The system seems to be working very well, and with the expected positive outcome for the island’s environment.  We plan to install 2 more FLUE-ACE CONDENSING FLUE GAS ECONOMIZERS at the MILOS, Voudia perlite plant, in 2018-2019.

Net present value from the system’s operation is 124,000 euro (depending on current oil prices). In the future, one can count with 3X the aforementioned amount, if two more ECONOMIZERS are installed at the MILOS, Voudia Perlite Plant.