Cyclonic Seperator Top

The top of one of the cyclonic separators at Kandos Cement Works opens onto the upper level of the preheater tower, the steelwork rising overhead in a cage of beams, walkways, and ducting. From this vantage the separator's inlet duct enters the cone from one side, the body of the cone disappears into the floor below, and the cleaned-gas riser pipe climbs through the next storey on its way to the stack. The platform around the head of the cyclone is steel grating, with a guardrail running along its open edge. Light comes in through gaps in the upper cladding of the tower. Cement dust covers every horizontal edge and pools in the corners of the platform.

The preheater tower at a modern cement works contains a stack of cyclonic separators arranged vertically. Hot raw meal cascades down through the cyclones in stages, exchanging heat with the rising kiln exhaust gas, so that it enters the kiln at close to calcination temperature. The system saves fuel and was the major energy-efficiency upgrade across the cement industry in the second half of the twentieth century. Kandos Cement Works ran a preheater tower of this kind. Cement Australia invested $10 million in plant modernisation in 2007, including a new Kiln 6 stack. The works closed four years later in September 2011, after 95 years of continuous cement production at the site.