A hydraulic binder based on a sulfoaluminate clinker including the mineralogical phases ye'elimite C.sub.4A.sub.3$, mayenite C.sub.12A.sub.7, free lime CaO, and optionally belite C2S, characterized in that, in the clinker, the mineralogical phases are 20% to 50% by weight of ye'elimite C4A3$ phase, 5% to 80% by weight of mayenite C.sub.12A.sub.7 phase, and 1% to 5% by weight of free lime CaO, the weight ratio between the mayenite C.sub.12A.sub.7 and ye'elimite C.sub.4A.sub.3$ phases being between 0.1 and 10. The binder can be used to treat polluted soils, in particular soils with a leachable fraction greater than 0.4% that contains predominantly anions and/or heavy metal cations by mixing the soil with the hydraulic binder, in soil/binder weight proportions of between 1 and 40 parts of binder for 100 parts of soil. It makes it possible to stabilize soils which are polluted or to stabilize soils before dumping.

A tribo-electrostatic separation process for beneficiation of bauxite minerals is disclosed. The process may include one or more steps of grinding, drying, de-agglomeration, air classification and electrostatic separation.

A method for manufacturing calcined clays comprising extracting and mixing raw clays; dosing a reducing agent to the mixed raw clays and homogenizing the resulting mixture; reducing the particle size of the mixture to less than 10 mm; heating the mixture in a flash dryer or flash calciner until the mixture has between 0% and 5% moisture; calcining the dried mixture from 600 to 900 C., maintaining an oxygen concentration between 1 and 5%; and cooling the calcined clay from 900 C. to 120 C., and uses of such calcined clay resulting from the claimed method in cement and/or a cementitious material for preparing concrete.

There is provided a method for operating a cement plant capable of simultaneously optimizing both combustion in a calciner and a heat consumption rate. The method for operating a cement plant includes: feeding first fuel to a calciner; feeding second fuel for maintaining the inside at a burning temperature to a cement kiln along with combustion primary air, and introducing air for cooling cement clinker to a cooler; and feeding a part of the air as secondary air to the cement kiln, feeding as tertiary air to the calciner, and discharging the rest of the air from the cooler, wherein relation between a first oxygen concentration at an exhaust gas outlet of the calciner and a heat consumption rate determined by the first fuel and the second fuel, and relation between a second oxygen concentration at an exhaust gas outlet of the preheater and the heat consumption rate are beforehand obtained, and amounts of the secondary air and the tertiary air are adjusted such that both the first oxygen concentration and the second oxygen concentration fall within a range including values of the oxygen concentrations at which the heat consumption rate becomes at its minimum.

A tribo-electrostatic separation process for beneficiation of bauxite minerals is disclosed. The process may include one or more steps of grinding, drying, de-agglomeration, air classification and electrostatic separation.

The invention relates to a method and a system for producing cement clinker from raw cement mixture, wherein one part of the raw cement mixture is preheated in a calciner preheater, and the other part of the raw cement mixture is preheated in an oven preheater, the preheated raw cement mixture is pre-calcined in a calciner which is operated according to the oxyfuel method, the pre-calcined raw cement mixture is fired in an oven, the fired raw cement mixture is cooled in a cooler, the calciner preheater is operated using exhaust gases of the calciner, the oven preheater is operated using exhaust gases of the oven, an entrained flow reactor is used as the calciner, a part of the calciner exhaust gas being recirculated to the calciner after being used in the calciner preheater, and the oven exhaust gas undergoes a post-combustion CO.sub.2 separation.