Ceramics Industry
CONCLUSIONS OF THE FIRST VIRTUAL FAIR ORGANIZED BY THE ECTS
FIRST INDUSTRIALIZED CONSTRUCTION PLANT IN SPAIN: A FAIR WARNING TO THE BRICK INDUSTRY

News and Accomplishments
NEW VC3 MODEL VERTICAL CYCLONIC COMBUSTION CHAMBER

Between September 28 and October 4, the first virtual fair organized by the ECTS with the support of CERAMITEC was held.

The 17 ECTS member companies that participated as exhibitors and the event welcomed close to a thousand registered visitors, who enjoyed an agenda of presentations and personalized attention from the exhibitors with a minimal investment in time, and no investment at all in travel expenses.

Although the fair can be described as successful in terms of attendance, it is normal that as a first experience there are reflections to be made for the future. Obviously it is an event motivated by a pandemic that will cease to be part of our lives in a few months, but what the main task ahead now is to ask ourselves whether these events or similar ones (symposia, congresses) will make sense further on and what differences or adjustments are necessary.

Be that as it may, the year 2021 will foreseeably continue to be marked by the pandemic, although we hope it will be the year of its end, and our industry like many others should continue to use technology to replace face-to-face contact as much as possible.

The ECTS will surely continue to contribute in this context.

The AVINTIA and CEMEX groups have come together to launch WALLEX, a business for the design, engineering, manufacture and on-site installation of panelized and transportable off-site construction systems, which will be manufactured in a new factory that has already begun to be built in the province of Segovia (Spain).

According to AVINTIA, this 8,000 sqm factory will have the capacity to produce about 1,000 prefabricated homes per year, and will be the first of more plants that are planned.

The industrialized manufacture of houses is a trend that is expected to grow in the coming years for many reasons related to the efficiency of the use of both material and human resources, in addition to its ability to reduce construction execution times.

In this project by the AVINTIA and CEMEX groups, the use of structural ceramic materials is not foreseen, but rather concrete is the main protagonist, and it is a fair warning to the brick industry in Spain: either the constructive regulatory framework is modified to favor the industrialization of prefabricated ceramic block walls, or it will be very difficult for structural ceramics to get on the train of the future.

Assembly of prefabricated walls of ceramic blocks, a picture that would be desirable to see all over the world as soon as possible.

The specialization of BERALMAR in the field of heat generation is well known, with applications not only in dryers for ceramic products but also for agricultural products and in many other fields.

This year BERALMAR has expanded its range of solutions for heat generation with a new solution, the VC3 model vertical cyclonic combustion chamber.

The operating principle of this chamber, built with refractory material, is based on the tangential injection of solid fuel into the preheated chamber, allowing the self-combustion of the fuel.

The main advantage of its vertical design is the easy and efficient automation of ash and waste collection.

This chamber is currently available in powers between 1,250 and 3,500 kWh.

The first unit will be applied in an ash post-combustion project of a gasification system in Switzerland, with the aim of reducing the fraction of polluting emissions.