Zinc recovery plant at Mandi Gobindgarh

Patiala, September 24

In an effort to use the hazardous waste of induction furnaces and recover valuable metals, the Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) aims at promoting more firms to adopt this technology that would help save environment pollution.

A pilot zinc recovery plant set up by a private firm, M/s Madhav Alloys Pvt Ltd, situated at Gobindgarh was today inaugurated by   K.S Pannu, chairman of the Punjab Pollution Control Board. This plant, which is the first-of-its-kind in the country, will use the hazardous waste of induction furnaces and recover valuable metals. It will help in reducing the pollution load in the environment.

This plant is the result of consistent efforts of the board to persuade the industrial units in Punjab to adopt waste minimisation techniques by way of recovery of useful products from the hazardous wastes being generated by them. The induction furnace industries, mainly in Mandi Gobindgarh and Ludhiana, produce dust as air emissions, which is then collected through the Air Pollution Control Devices (APCD) and this dust is hazardous in nature but rich in many metals.

With the proactive role and persuasion made by the board, M/s Madhav Alloys Pvt Ltd. has set up a plant after two years of intensive R&D for the recovery of zinc in the form of metal and also valuable sludge containing iron and lead from industrial dust. This is done as per the standard operating procedure laid down by the board.

The new plant set up near Mandi Gobindgarh has the capacity to handle 10 tons  of waste dust of induction furnaces per day to recover 4 tons of zinc per day and it involves the processes like calcination, precipitation of iron, lead and copper in the form of sludge and electrolysis.

PPCB chairman KS Pannu said the board was making efforts to develop technology to recover zinc from the effluent of electroplating industries which will help to reduce the pollution load of sewage water in Ludhiana. He further said it was in advanced stage of setting up units for recovering valuable ferrous and ferric chloride from hydrochloric acid based effluent of pickling units manufacturing engineering goods based in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Mohali. — TNS

This plant is the result of consistent efforts of the board to persuade the industrial units in Punjab to adopt waste minimisation techniques by way of recovery of useful products from the hazardous wastes being generated by them.