The hottest shaft kiln on the market

High temperature shaft kiln

Delivering high thermal efficiency, excellent product quality and homogeneity, and low operating costs, our high-temperature shaft kilns meet the complex and specific needs of the refractory industry for single-step sintering of raw materials up to 2300°C.

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Key benefits of our shaft kilns

  • Optimise operating costs

    By using the hot air previously used for cooling the product as secondary combustion air, we ensure very little heat is lost from the process. This allows FLS shaft kilns to achieve superior thermal efficiency, reducing overall energy consumption, even as we deliver the highest process temperatures on the market. Our kilns also fire a range of liquid, gaseous, and solid fuels, allowing fuel supply and costs to be optimised according to local fuel availability.

  • High product quality and homogeneity

    Our shaft kilns feature radially arranged burner lances that reach into the material bed to ensure optimal temperature distribution. The number of lances and levels can also be customised to deliver the optimal operating temperature and thermal profile for your application. Meanwhile, the variable-speed discharge device enables precise control of material retention time. This firing system-discharge mechanism combination ensures you consistently meet process and product quality specifications, whatever raw materials are in the mix.

  • Designed for low maintenance

    Our shaft kilns are designed to reduce maintenance requirements. For example, the latest discharge mechanism design features a segmented top plate, with reduced diameter and height, improving thermal expansion properties and lowering thermal load and temperature profile. Cast from a high-temperature, wear-resistant alloy and incorporating autogenous wear protection, the top plate experiences less wear and tear than previous designs and can be retrofitted to existing kilns.

  • Safest kiln start-up and operation

    Our natural gas- or hydrogen-fired start-up burners offer the safest way to start or restart the shaft furnace for commissioning/recommissioning. Included as standard on new kilns, they are also available to retrofit existing installations. Meanwhile, the innovative top plate design – also available as a retrofit – reduces thermal load and temperature profile in the discharge mechanism. Made from a high temperature-resistant alloy, the top plate thus mitigates the safety risks associated with exposure to higher temperatures.

Our shaft kilns

Our high-temperature shaft kilns are available for various applications, including sintering caustic calcined magnesia (CCM) to dead burned magnesia (DBM), sintering dolomitic lime (dolime) to dead burned dolomite, and calcining limestone to hard- or dead-burned lime. We can deliver kilns up to 3.6m outside diameter and able to handle capacities up to 300 tpd, depending on application.

Models

Compare our shaft kilns

Outer Diameter (mm)
2200
3000
Shaft height (mm)
9500
10000
Number burner lances
12
16

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Frequently asked questions

FAQs for shaft kilns

Shaft kiln, or vertical kilns, are a type of thermal processing equipment. Raw materials are fed into the top of the kiln and move downward in counterflow to hot air, undergoing various stages of heating and chemical reactions as they go.

Our high-temperature shaft kilns can reach temperatures up to 2300°C. 

The product is cooled via the introduction of cold ambient air, which absorbs heat during the cooling process. We use this heated air as secondary combustion air, ensuring very little heat is lost from the process. This allows us to achieve extremely high temperatures up to 2300°C without the use of oxygen. 

Our shaft kilns can be used in several applications to treat a range of raw materials including calcining magnesite, dolomite, limestone, kaolin, and bauxite, direct sintering of natural magnesite, dolomite and kaolin, and sintering of calcined materials such as magnesia, dolime, alumina, and spinel. 

Our high-temperature shaft kilns may also be known as a regenerative calcining equipment kilns, or RCE high-temperature shaft kilns, after Refractory Consulting Engineering, who invented this type of kiln in 1976.