A cement manufacturing plant includes a raw meal mill, at least one preheater string, a clinker furnace and a clinker cooler including a first section and a second section, wherein a preheater exhaust gas recirculation device is provided for recirculating exhaust gas leaving the at least one preheater string into the first section of the clinker cooler, and wherein the cement plant is configured for switching between an air operation mode and an oxyfuel operation mode, includes a first switching device for connecting either a source of air or a source of oxygen rich gas to a burning zone of the clinker furnace burner, and a second switching device for either establishing or separating a connection of the preheater exhaust gas recirculation means to the first section of the clinker cooler.

Apparatus. methods. and systems for heat treatment of solid materials utilizing an indirect rotary calciner comprising one or more thermal expansion tolerant inner tubes fixed to an outer rotating shell. for example. by one or more resilient support members. The described methods of thermal treatment may be particularly utilized with cement and lime production processes and/or other heat treatment applications. such as pyrolysis.

A kiln system is provided, including a drying section, a preheating section, a firing section, a soaking section, a cooling section, and a decarburization section arranged between the drying section and the preheating section. The decarburization section includes an ignition zone, a hot air combustion/pyrolysis zone, and a waste heat recovery pipeline. A heat source is introduced into the ignition zone so that the temperature of the ceramsite of the raw materials with heating values in the zone is 400 C. to 900 C. The hot air combustion/pyrolysis zone is configured for combusting or pyrolyzing carbon-containing materials and organic components in the raw materials with heating values in the ceramsite. The waste heat recovery pipeline is configured for discharging decarburization exhaust gas and recovering heat released after the raw materials with heating values in the ceramsite are combusted or pyrolyzed in the decarburization exhaust gas.

A system to convert a renewable lower energy material to a higher energy material using residual heat from a steel processing unit is provided. A system comprising a flow through catalytic reactor that selectively catalytically converts methanol into a hydrogen and carbon monoxide stream utilizing a steel processing unit's residual heat, and the subsequent separation and collection and storage of hydrogen with the introduction of the separated carbon monoxide stream into the steel processing unit so as to replace or reduce carbon sources, is also disclosed.