May 2006 —Austrian steel producer voestalpine Stahl GmbH recently awarded VAI, a division of the Siemens Group Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S), a contract for the installation of the world's first Meros gas-cleaning plant at the company's sinter facility in Linz, Austria.
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Meros — which stands for Maximized Emission Reduction of Sintering — is a new dry-type gas-cleaning process in which special adsorbents and desulphurization agents are injected into the sinter waste-gas stream in the counter-current-flow direction to bind the heavy metals and organic compounds.
The gas stream then passes to a specially designed conditioning reactor where the gas is cooled and moisturized using highly efficient dual-flow nozzles. This accelerates the chemical reactions for binding and removing sulfur dioxide and other acidic gas components.
After exiting the conditioning reactor, the off-gas stream passes through a bag filter equipped with special high-performance fabrics where all the dust is removed.
In order to enhance the gas-cleaning efficiency and to significantly reduce additive costs, the separated dust particles are recycled to the off-gas stream after the conditioning reactor. A portion of this dust is removed from the system and conveyed to intermediate storage silos.
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In addition to the addition of the Meros plant, the sinter plant’s existing wet-type gas-cleaning system will be replaced with a dry-type solution,. The dry-type solution will allow the higher concentrations of dust and pollutants in the off-gas to be completely treated, and will also help to fulfill the stricter municipal environmental emission regulations required for the sinter-plant extension.
The new Meros plant will be capable of treating approximately 1,000,000 cubic meters of sinter gas per hour. The decision to install a Meros plant in Linz follows the successful results achieved in a series of test campaigns conducted in a 90,000 cubic meter/hour demonstration plant, during which the technical and economical advantages of this innovative sinter waste-gas-cleaning process could be verified.
Start-up of the new plant is scheduled for August 2007.
Voestalpine Stahl produces approximately 4.8 million tonnes of steel per year, which are sold as coils and plates used primarily in the European automotive, household-appliance and building-supply industries.
The VAI group, a division of the Siemens Group Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S), is one of the world's leading engineering and plant-building companies for the iron and steel industry as well as for the flat-product-rolling sector of the aluminum industry. VAI, derived from Voest-Alpine Industrieanlagenbau, Austria, provides a comprehensive range of supplies and services for all related technological processes and integrated automation solutions for the entire life-cycle of metallurgical plants.
The Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) is the integrator of systems and solutions for industrial and infrastructure facilities and global service provider for the plant and projects business covering planning, installation, operation and the entire life cycle. I&S uses the electrical and technical products of other Siemens Groups in order to enhance productivity and improve competitiveness of companies in the sectors of metallurgy, water treatment, pulp and paper, oil and gas, marine engineering, open-cast mining, airport logistics, postal automation, intelligent traffic systems and industrial services. In fiscal 2005 (to September 30) I&S employed a total of 31,700 people worldwide and achieved total sales of EUR 5.390 billion.