Illinois tin, selenium recycling plant ramping up
Date: 29-Jan-02
Country: USA
"For initial start-up, capacity for tin will be about 800 short tons per year, but we have the capability for tripling that over a couple of years, based on availability of the right type of wastes," president and chief executive Bill Morgan told Reuters.
The plant, located in Newman, Illinois, processes tin waste from the steel and circuit board manufacturing industries into tin metals and chlorides and also recycles selenium wastes.
In preparation for its reopening, the plant has been scrubbed down in the last three years at a cost of more than $2.3 million, in compliance with an order from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency.
Hydromet disposed of hazardous wastes left by the plant's previous management and cleaned all 102 processing and storage tanks.
"It will take us a little while to ramp-up. We had been waiting until we had the plant cleaned up," Morgan said.
The Newman facility, which cost about $35 million to build, was previously owned by holding company PS Group until 1995. It had been processing low-grade wastes of zinc and copper.
Morgan said that Ontario, Canada-based Hydromet had wanted to shift production at Newman to higher-priced, more profitable materials.
For example, the selenium residues processed from copper slime at Newman will also yield small amounts of precious metals by-products such as silver, gold, platinum, palladium and rhodium.
Selenium wastes are generated in the copper refining industry, and will be processed into either high grade selenium metal for the glass and photo copier industries, or into selenium salt crystals for the animal feedlot industry.
Hydromet said it will regularly receive selenium waste materials from Amlon Metals in New York and Norddeutsche Affinerie in Hamburg, Germany.
The company has contracted to receive tin waste materials on a regular basis generated at Bethlehem Steel in Pennsylvania and from Dofasco Limited in Ontario. The plant produces tin metal using electowinning technology.
Morgan said the plant will also begin processing partially-refined cobalt from Hydromet's stockpile in Baja California within the year. It may eventually recycle cobalt from other sources as well.
Newman can operate with as few as six workers per shift using modern instrumentation and remote control.
