The availability of most of the AFR is limited or scattered which may not be economically viable for use in most of the large cement plants because of logistics, quantity, preparation and technical issues, says Dr KN Bhattacharjee.

At the outset, I would like to mention that in Nuvoco we do not look at a range in terms of "premium brands". Our endeavour is to understand customer needs and develop the right value added products and solutions for him.

Today's blended cements have its origin in the old Roman construction. Due to technological advancements [now] the similar cements are available in the new forms.

Portland Slag Cement (PSC) is manufactured by inter-grinding Portland cement clinker, gypsum and granulated slag obtained from steel and ferro alloys industries.

With depletion of high cement grade limestone, presently Indian cement industry is facing an acute cement raw material problem for smooth plant operation and manufacture of higher grade cement.

Indian cement industry has been innovative and has adopted state-of-the-art technologies in areas such as resource conservation, environmental protection, energy conservation, waste utilisation, low carbon technologies, and so on.

A cement clinker is usually ground using a ball mill. This hardware is generally divided into two or three chambers, with different size of grinding media. As the clinker particles are ground further, smaller media are more efficient at reducing the particle size even further.

A new-age self-compacting, self-levelling concrete, Agilia - recommended by Nuvoco Vistas Corp (formerly Lafarge India Limited) - was used for constructing a state-of-the-art Oncology Radiation Chamber in Kiran Multi Specialty Hospital in Surat; making it the first-of-its-kind in Gujarat.

The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has decided to form a multi-disciplinary committee to examine the possibility of building cement plants near power plants to use fly ash.