The Economic Times reports on NALCO’s plan about a cement venture and its plans to convert fly-ash to salable product. Following are excerpts from that report.

… (Nalco) has decided to diversify into cement manufacturing and is looking for global joint venture partners to float a medium to large sized cement plant. Nalco’s proposed cement venture is part of its decision to use fly ash generated at its captive power plant at Angul in Orissa and convert it into sale-able products. …

Nalco is primarily looking at the possibility of manufacturing Pozzo-lana Portland Cement (PPC). A byproduct of coal-fired power plants, fly ash can replace a proportion of the clinker used in cement plants. However, the company is also open to any other form of utilisation of fly ash in the JV.

The company is also seeking JV partners for classification and marketing of cementitious applications in the domestic and export markets. Cementitious products have cement-like, cementing, or bonding type properties. As the largest state owned producer of aluminium, Bhubaneswar-based Nalco operates alumina-aluminium complex along with a captive power plant, and has embarked on a major expansion programme to raise metal capacity.

The project also involves enhancing installed captive power generation capacity from 960 mw to 1,200 mw at Angul. Fly ash is commonly used as a high-performance substitute for Portland cement or as clinker for Portland cement production. Cement blended with fly ash is becoming very common. Building material applications range from grouts and masonry products to cellular concrete and roofing tiles.

Nalco has eight power units of 120 mw each, while the expansion project involves setting up two more identical units of 120 mw. These will be commissioned by the year 2008.

Typically, such units generate about 5,000-6,000 tonnes of ash per day, of which fly ash consists of 4,000-4,800 tonnes. A project is un-derway to allow easy loading of fly ash from the plants. By 2009, the quantity of fly ash that can be utilised is expected to touch 4,500 ton-nes per day. At present, this volume is about 900 tonnes.

“Nalco is yet to decide on the size of the cement plant. However, rough estimates show that a one million tonnes cement plant can be put up to utilise three lakh tonnes of fly ash. Nalco’s current fly ash generation per annum is 3.2 lakh tonnes,” a Nalco official said.