INTRODUCTION TO SUBCOAL, THE RECENT SUBCOAL TRIALS

AND THE FUTURE

Brian Smith

Technical Consultant

N+P ALTERNATIVE FUELS LTD

04-10-2017

WHAT IS SUBCOAL?

• N+P purchased the Subcoal manufacturing plant in Hollland from Dutch State Mines including the patents.

• Since early October 2017 N+P owns 100% of the shares

• Subcoal is pelletised high grade SRF with the following properties:

Minimum 20MJ/kg

Less than 8% H2O

Approx 0.035% Cl/MJ

Approx 0.45 bulk density

Dust free

Odourless

Hydrophobic

Can be milled on Loesche mill

LABORATORY WORK WITH LOESCHE• In December 2015 carried out laboratory trials at the

Loesche Dusseldorf R&D plant.

• Managed to co-mill coal and Subcoal easily up to a mixture of 30% Subcoal and 70% coal or petcoke

• Loesche predicted that we could easily achieve 50% substitution and that even 100% is achievable.

• The milled Subcoal product was 99% less than 5mm.

• Clearly this would burn very well on a cement kiln especially when considering a volatiles in excess of 70%.

• By this time we had “sold out “ the Dutch production plant but we were still looking for a good client to carry out full commercial trials.

THE SEARCH FOR A COMMERCIAL PARTNER TO BURN CO-MILLED SUBCOAL WAS OVER

• Together with Loesche we searched for an appropriate partner.

• Eventually we decided upon the plant at Vassiliko in Cyprus.

• The plant built in 2011 by Sinoma is a 5 stage , 6.000 tpdprecalciner plant.

• The factory has a history of being innovative and had burnt up to 45% alternative fuels. However thermal substitution with alternative fuels is kept at 30% for clinker quality purposes.

• N+P carried out a technical audit of the plant and concluded that following some improvements the plant would be a suitable site to carry out trials.

• The plans were therefore agreed upon to undertake the trials in the first half of 2017 depending upon clinker stocks.

BACKGROUND TO THE TRIALS

• We had to delay the trials at the beginning of 2017 due to very low clinker stocks.

• The scheduled date then became May 22nd.

• Upon arrival at site we were informed that the kiln had a red spot but that Vassiliko were happy to proceed.

• N+P undertook a baseline study of the clinker making process.

• Loesche also carried out a baseline survey of the Loesche coal milling system.

IMPACT ON MILL PERFORMANCE• Initially found it very hard to stabilize the mill with only 10%

Subcoal being milled.

• This was especially true when running the mill with material in manual mode (without differential pressure control)

• Vassiliko people had to readjust the mill differential pressure operation with Subcoal by minimizing mill internal material circulation.

• This phenomena was not a surprise to us as we had seen this on the test mill in Dusseldorf.

• Unfortunately at this time the kiln red spot returned. So it was decided to stop the kiln. However, we had managed to mill and burn material with combustion taking place in the calciner and on the main burner. Highest substitution achieved in the short time was 10% with the conclusion that much more could be achieved.

THE MILL WAS CLEAN

• The Dusseldorf research mill indicated that there would not be any build up.

• The photograph shows that the mill at Vassiliko also provided evidence that build up did not exist.

• Examination of the classifier also demonstrated the same phenomena.

IMPACT ON FUEL QUALITY

• In this trial the Subcoal was milled together with petcoke.

• The target residue for pure petcoke was 1% on a 90 micron sieve.

• The achieved residue was about 5% but we discovered that this was due to the coarser Subcoal(but due to high volatiles this was no issue).

• No change was seen in the burning conditions at the calciner or the main burner.

IMPACT ON KILN PERFORMANCE

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HOT MEAL CHLORIDE DURING TRIAL

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IMPACT ON CLINKER QUALITY

• Vassiliko are paranoid about clinker quality as they export the majority of their product as clinker to North Africa and Middle East.

• Therefore, any change in quality is being monitored very closely.

• Regarding chlorine no difference was seen, this is primarily due to the good operation of their bypass system.

• The plant are still assessing any strength development changes.

CLINKER C3S & C2S DURING THE VASSILIKO TRIALS

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NEXT STEPS FOR THE TRIALS• Sadly the commissioning was shortened by the

appearance of the red spot.

• Therefore, Vassiliko have agreed to continue with the trials after refractory shutdown and to continue to work closely with the N+P and Loesche technical teams.

• The plan will be firstly to increase feed tonnage to the mill and then increase the percentage of Subcoal being milled.

• Finally, Loesche have declared that they are now confident with the concept and will be advising their representatives to support this initiative .Indeed, the level of commitment given to this project is demonstrated with the attached picture (Deputy To The Chairman and MD of Loesche Energy) at the Vassilikomill.

SUBCOAL ALSO DISPLACING TYRE CHIPS

• The Ribblesdale plant in the north of England had been burning tyre chips for a number of years using a purpose built feed system.

• Subcoal was fed to the kiln using the existing feed system and the tyre chip feed was switched off.

• Within 24 hours a substitution of over 30% thermal was achieved.

• Kiln feed LOI and chloride did not change but kiln torque increased , thus demonstrating very good thermal performance.

• A patent is now pending for this application.

SUBCOAL BECOMING POPULAR IN THE STEEL INDUSTRY

• N+P have been trialing the use of Subcoal pellets at the Austrian Voestalpine steel plant blast furnace for some 6 months.

• This work has also been followed by the University of Leoben in Austria.

• We are now in discussion regarding a long term contract with the company.

• We are also in discussion with Tata Steel in Port Talbot (UK) and British Steel ay Scunthorpe (UK).

• This activity is also being followed by Swansea University.

• Patents are now pending for this application.

• So far the use of Subcoal on steel blast furnaces has been very successful.

NEW SUBCOAL PRODUCTION FACILITY• Currently N+P have one production facility in the north of

Holland.

• The plant is running at maximum production and is now fully “sold out”.

• N+P are therefore building the second production facility in North East England at Teesside.

• The plant will supply domestic need and can be used for exporting purposes.

• The plant will produce circa 160kt/yr of Subcoal pellets.

• Commissioning will be completed in Q2 of 2018.

• It is believed that this will be the first of many Subcoal plants that will be built in the UK and elsewhere.

CONCLUSIONS

• The development of the various applications of Subcoal are moving at some pace.

• The cement applications are well developed and the steel applications are progressing with great speed.

• These developments further underline the view that N+P is now an energy supply company and not just a waste management company.

• In addition ,as can be seen from the presentation, N+P are also advising consumers on the use of their fuel and so providing more added value to their offering.