Orica cuts 95% particle emissions from Kooragang Island, NSW

Orica (ASX: ORI) has completed a major environmental improvement project that significantly reduces emissions of ammonium nitrate (AN) particulate from its Kooragang Island manufacturing site in the Hunter Valley, NSW.

The new, best practice abatement technology reduces AN particulate emissions, including fine particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometres or less, by about 95%.

The captured emissions are then recirculated in the manufacturing process to produce critical products for the resources and medical industries across Australia.

Orica president Australia Pacific and sustainability Germán Morales says the project is another example of the company’s commitment to continuous improvement and key to ensuring the sustainability of the Kooragang Island site.

“We understand and share the community’s desire for better air quality in general, and we are proud to play a role in achieving this,” he said.

“From start to finish, we have worked closely with the NSW Environment Protection Authority to ensure the project meets regulatory expectations and delivers optimal outcomes for the community and the environment.”

How it works

The project involved retro-fitting the prill tower, where liquid ammonium nitrate is turned into small, solid ammonium nitrate balls, with an irrigated fibre-bed scrubber to capture particles of AN produced during the manufacturing process.

The irrigated fibre-bed scrubber cleans the contaminants out of a gas stream, with the first stage removing large particles via woven stainless steel mesh pads and the second stage removing fine particles via Brink® filters.

These filters are woven tubes that accumulate and coalesce the finer particles into solution for collection in a sump at the bottom of the scrubber.

Designing, fabricating and installing the scrubber was a multi-year, large-scale engineering project, with the construction phase taking more than 18 months or 115,000 work hours to complete.

Around 50 extra jobs were created during the build, in addition to the regular 200 plus workforce.

“Retro-fitting the scrubber to an existing and operating prill tower which stands at around 52m high has been technically challenging,” Mr Morales said.

“Completing this project is a great achievement for the site and a real testament to the expertise of our people.”

Long-term sustainability

Orica Kooragang Island has completed a number of projects to improve the site’s environmental performance and contribute to its long-term reliability and sustainability. They include:

• installing abatement technology on the three nitric acid plants to reduce overall greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 50%;

• switching to recycled water, an initiative that saves the Hunter region up to 2.6b litres of drinking water a year; and

• completing a comprehensive program of works to improve the way ammonia is managed, including the installation of three ammonia flaring systems.

Orica is also partnering with clean technology developer MCi Carbon to build a world-first carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) plant ‘Myrtle’ at the Kooragang Island site.