Join us at the CRU Sulphur + Sulphuric Acid 2024 Conference and Exhibition in Barcelona, 4-6 November, for a global gathering of the sulphur and sulphuric acid community. Meet leading market and technology experts and producers, network, share knowledge, and learn about market trends and the latest developments in operations, process technology and equipment.
In today’s dynamic business landscape, digitalisation has become a powerful tool for companies seeking to enhance operations. By leveraging real-time plant data, organisations can create more meaningful interactions between operations teams, technical experts within the industry and the power of machine learning. David Dericotte and Linda Colby of Elessent Clean Technologies introduce the MECS® digital advisor, a web-based dashboard for plant performance assessment, troubleshooting and a supplemental mentoring tool for less experienced engineers and operators.
MECS, Inc. (MECS) has developed a new impaction-based mist eliminator called Brink® Prime Impact™ , which offers equivalent or improved efficiency at higher throughput and the same pressure drop as traditional impaction beds, resulting in the ability to debottleneck existing inter-pass absorption towers and final absorption towers in sulphuric acid plants or design new or replacement towers with smaller diameters, thus reducing investment cost.
Fertilizer International presents a global round-up of phosphate rock, phosphoric acid and finished phosphates projects.
First Quantum Minerals Ltd. has contracted with MECS, Inc. (MECS), a subsidiary of Elessent Clean Technologies, for the Kansanshi smelter expansion at the Kansanshi mine at Solwezi. MECS’ scope of work will include a redesign of the existing sulphur-burning sulphuric acid plant into a copper smelter off-gas recovery sulphuric acid plant. This transition to a copper smelter off-gas recovery acid plant will enable First Quantum to reduce emissions from the existing copper smelter, increase production at the mine, and supply more copper to the global market, which will enable the adoption of greener technologies. MECS’ design for First Quantum incorporates proprietary technologies such as MECS® catalyst for low emissions and high conversion, Brink® mist eliminators, ZeCor® alloy towers and pump tank and UniFlo® acid distributor technology for operational reliability and efficiency.
A report on CRU’s annual Sulphur + Sulphuric Acid conference, held in New Orleans, USA, 6-8 November 2023.
Leading companies such as Ballestra, Buss ChemTech, Elessent Clean Technologies (MECS) and Prayon Technologies are working together to solve the numerous production challenges facing the operators of integrated phosphate fertilizer production plants.
Kazakhstan’s oil and condensate output increased by 7% from 1.79 million bbl/d to 1.92 million bbl/d in early June after sour gas reinjection operations resumed at the Kashagan offshore oil and gas development following a recent outage, according to the Kazkah Energy Ministry. Reinjection of sour gas into two wells resumed on 8th June, enabling operator the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) to boost oil and condensate production at a large artificial island in Kazakhstan’s Caspian Sea waters. Reinjection was paused on May 20th following the detection of sour gas during routine sampling and a subsequent integrity test. Kashagan normally produces about 300,000 barrels of oil per day. Kazakhstan expects Kashsgan to raise oil production this year to 18.2 million t/a from 12.7 million t/a in 2022.
Metso is launching an advanced sustainable battery black mass recycling process as part of its battery minerals technology offering, which covers concentration and hydrometallurgical processing as well as related services. Demand for battery minerals is increasing sharply with the ongoing transition to clean energy sources. An electric car battery weighs approximately 200 kg. Recycling of black mass from batteries with Metso’s process can reduce up to 60% of embedded carbon compared to use of virgin materials and enables the treatment of mechanically separated and shredded batteries for recovering battery raw materials like nickel, cobalt, and lithium, as well as manganese and copper.
Worley has been awarded a contract to supply Chemetics’ CORESO2™ technology for a sulphuric acid plant and associated oxygen unit at the Arafura Rare Earths project, sited 135 km north of Alice Springs in Australia’s Northern Territory. A greenfield mine will extract and process neodymium and praseodymium to create ultra-strong permanent magnets for a range of applications, such as household electronics and high-performance motors for electric vehicles.