A novel dry granule preparation technology and comparison of granule properties with conventional wet system for ceramic tiles production

The ceramic tile manufacturing process uses a lot of energy, mainly thermal energy, and to a lesser extent electric energy. Total energy costs account for between 50% and 55% of average direct manufacturing costs. Fossil fuel combustion, such as natural gas combustion, produces carbon dioxide emissions. Therefore, energy consumption and emissions issues are vitally important for both environmental effects and process costs in ceramic tile manufacturing. The wet process of granule production systems including wet grinding and spray drying is widely used for the production of granules. Although there is high energy consumption for the water evaporation in the spray dryer, it ensures to produce high quality tile for many years. In this study, important granule properties were introduced for a novel dry granule production system. In the successful application of a dry granulation system, the conformity of produced granules is vitally important such as particle size distribution, bulk density, flow properties, and moisture of granules and conformity for the pressing process. This paper includes the comparative studies for properties of granules produced in spray dryer and new dry granule preparation systems and the full results of the industrial trials with these granules. The cost comparison of both granule production systems was also made for the same raw material usage. The natural gas consumption and water consumption were reduced respectively from 46 to 15 m³/ton and from 540 to 95 liters/ton in the new dry granulation system while electricity consumption and maintenance costs remain almost the same in both systems.