Energy consumption in various industrial sectors is among the main driver of greenhouse gas emissions. The ceramics industry is among the largest CO2 emitters worldwide. The research conducted in the past few years to reduce carbon emissions has not been focusing on the ceramics industry due to the difficult manufacturing process and the delicate nature of the product. Design for Resource and Energy efficiency in cerARMic kilns, or DREAM project, funded by the EU Commission, tried to address this challenge, and improve the efficiency of a ceramics kiln used in the by applying two new type of heat exchangers, the radiative heat pipe heat exchanger and a cross flow forced convection heat pie heat exchanger.

This presentation will go through the principle of heat pipe and heat pipes heat exchanger and their applications to the ceramic industry. The benefits and drawbacks for each unit will be presented and real data and cost analysis will be shown.