Waste heat of a brick kiln – an opportunity of power generation

Abstract

Brick kiln contributes a significant role on social development and infrastructure of a country. The temperature in the furnace of a brick kiln is around 1000^oC and around 800-850^oC in the firing zone during the brick production. There is huge amount of heat waste through flue gas, kiln wall, earth and radiation during this brick production process. A conceptual module is proposed to use of waste heat of a brick kiln and produce power through steam power plant. The study shows that there are 68%, 63% and 75% of waste heat based on the use of coal, natural gas and fire wood as fuel respectively. It reflects from this investigation that 40% of the total heat input and rest 60% of heat of the flue gas after burning the green bricks is sufficient to generate steam at temperature of 400^oC with a pressure of 2.6 MPa by using the waste heat boiler. The rated pressure and temperature is capable of producing 1 MW power from each brick kiln. It also highlighted that Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is much better option over the Rankine Cycle for the waste heat boiler and ultimately for power generation. Consequently, the challenges of this conceptual module are also discussed. Practical implantation of power plant for power generation from the waste heat of brick kiln should make significant impact on traditional power generation system as there are 100,000 brick kilns around the globe.