I. Core Process Characteristics

1. Process Advantages

- Raw Meal Properties: The raw meal is prepared as a slurry with a moisture content of 32%–40%, featuring excellent mixability and homogenization effect. It ensures stable composition and uniform quality of the raw meal, reducing the risk of product quality fluctuation.

- Environmental Protection and Process Simplification: The production process generates low dust emissions, causing minimal environmental pollution. It eliminates the need for raw material drying equipment, simplifying the production process and reducing initial capital investment in equipment.

2. Core Disadvantages

- High Energy Consumption: The specific heat consumption is typically around 1500 kcal/kg clinker, which is significantly higher than that of dry-process kilns.

- Increased Energy Consumption with Large-scale Design: In the 1950s, small wet-process rotary kilns required only 1200 kcal of heat per kilogram of clinker. For a large wet-process kiln with a specification of φ7.5m×231m, although the hourly output reached 150 tons, the specific heat consumption rose to 1390 kcal/kg clinker.

- Limitations of Waste Heat Recovery: Even with a total length of 37 km of chains installed inside the kiln for waste heat recovery, the exhaust gas temperature at the kiln tail is still no less than 210℃, failing to effectively solve the problem of heat energy loss.

II. Background of Process Substitution

1. Weakened Market Competitiveness

High energy consumption directly drives up production costs. In the context of rising energy prices, the market competitiveness of wet-process kilns has gradually declined.

2. Advantages of Substitute Processes

With technologies such as suspension preheating and precalcination, the new dry-process cement production technology reduces the specific heat consumption to 700–800 kcal/kg clinker. Meanwhile, it features higher automation, greater production efficiency, and more stable product quality, gradually becoming the mainstream in the market.

III. Industry Status and Development Trends

- Global Application Status: The wet-process kiln production technology has been gradually replaced by energy-efficient and high-efficiency processes worldwide. Production lines are only retained in a few regions due to raw material characteristics or existing equipment inventory.

- Renovation Direction for Existing Production Lines: Most retained wet-process kilns adopt measures such as waste heat recovery system retrofits and process optimization to reduce energy consumption.

- Technology Iteration Logic: The principle of "energy efficiency priority" in industrial production has dominated the technology iteration. Low-energy-consumption and high-efficiency processes have become the mainstream, while high-energy-consumption processes are gradually eliminated by the market.