The Asland Cement Museum in Castellar de n’Hug has opened a new exhibition featuring a test kiln to produce clinker.The semi-industrial kiln was manufactured in 1967 at the Asland factory, and has now been restored.
The new exhibition allows visitors to the museum to start up the kiln, thanks to the contribution by the company Lafarge Cementos S.L., who have equipped it with a motor. Users can press a button, climb up the steps to tip in the limestone, and then see how the clinker is obtained after the kiln rotates for a minute. This provides an insight into how rotary cement kilns worked, transforming the raw stone (such as limestone or clay) into clinker, having first fired it at temperatures between 1500° C and 1800° C.
The test kiln was built in 1967 at the Clot del Moro factory, and has been duly restored to be returned to its original site. It was used at the Asland laboratory in the production process to perform the corresponding quality checks.
When the factory closed down, the kiln was transferred to the Asland central laboratory in Villaluenga de la Sagra, in Toledo province. In 2012 the Cement Museum recovered the exhibit and brought it to Castellar de n’Hug.
The Cement Museum
The Asland cement factory at the Clot del Moro site in the town of Castellar de n'Hug, closed down in the 1970s. The remains visible today still reveal the spectacular nature of one of the most outstanding manufacturing complexes of Catalan industrialisation, standing within a unique natural setting. The factory began a new life in 2002, becoming the Asland Cement Factory of Castellar de n’Hug thanks to the creation of a visitor centre and an external route around the industrial ruins of the factory.
The Asland industrial cement complex is one of the three sites of the Museum of Science and Technology of Catalonia (mNACTEC), and forms a part of its Territorial Structure, comprising 28 centres explaining the industrialisation of Catalonia. In 2005 it was declared an Asset of National Cultural Interest by the Autonomous Regional Government of Catalonia.
4 April 2018
