OREANDA-NEWS. Tata Steel is to complete a major environmental improvement project at its IJmuiden steel plant in the Netherlands more than a year ahead of schedule.

The pace of progress in installing the new bag filter facility in IJmuiden’s sinter plant* will enable it to be fully operational by the end of this year, more than a year ahead of the original completion date in 2015. Tata Steel expects the facility to reduce emissions of fine particles, heavy metals and dioxins from the sintering process by at least 75 percent..

Dook van den Boer, hub director of the IJmuiden plant, said: “This project has involved the construction of two huge, technologically sophisticated installations, each the size of an apartment block. Even for a company of our size this is a huge and very complex undertaking, consisting of several phases. Once each phase is complete, we carry out an extensive testing programme, making precise adjustments to ensure all the environmental targets are being met.

“Hooking up the first sinter plant to the installation in the autumn of 2011 was a very exciting moment for us. The testing programme that the installation has since gone through has shown that everything is working smoothly. This has led our experts to conclude that it is technologically feasible to complete the installation more than a year ahead of schedule.

“Tata Steel constantly strives to minimise the environmental impact of its processes and has decided to bring forward the programme of work. I am proud of the achievements of our technical crew and suppliers and pleased that their efforts mean the bag filter facility will be fully operational by the end of this year. That is good news for our company and for the environment.”

The EUR100 million new facility will contain 45,000 m2 of bag filters, the equivalent of more than six football pitches. It consists of two parts, one for dedusting the sinter shop and one for capturing and cleaning the gases from the sintering process. The dedusting facility has been operational since autumn 2011 and immediately made a contribution to IJmuiden’s environmental performance, lowering fine particle emissions by 7 percent in that year. Steel production also increased by 4 percent in 2011.

The gas cleaning facility is a more complex installation, requiring the sintering process gases to pass through a reactor, where the fine particles are coagulated so they can be filtered out when they enter the bag filters.

Sinter plants convert fine iron ore into sinter, an agglomerated product suitable for feeding into blast furnaces.