METHOD AND EQUIPMENT FOR COOLING WHITE CEMENTS CLINKER

The invention relates to a process and equipment for cooling white cement clinker, which has been sintered in a rotary kiln and, on leaving the rotary kiln, is classified into a plurality of fractions and sprayed with water for quenching and, after comminution of the coarse fraction, is charged to a water bath, from which all the clinker fractions are taken off by a transport device and fed to final cooling, the warmed cooling air from which is recycled as combustion air to the rotary kiln for heat recovery. In order to reduce the specific heat requirement and reduce investment costs, the entire clinker stream is classified, after it has left the rotary kiln (1), into two fractions, the fine fraction (F) is sprayed exclusively with water for quenching and fed to a first conveying device (8), the coarse fraction (G) is sprayed with water while being fed to the comminution device (4) and the comminuted material is fed to the water bath (6) from which it is taken off by a second conveying device (10). In addition, the hot and dry fine fraction (F) is fed as a lower layer to a conveying device (11 or 8) to which the wetter, comminuted coarse fraction (G) is charged as the upper layer, before both layers are fed to the aggregate (15) for final cooling.