Virotec Global Solutions Pty Ltd is pleased to announce that a new technical document summarising Virotec’s ability to treat the solid, liquid and gaseous waste generated from the coal industry has been released. The document, authored by Dr Lee Fergusson, Virotec’s Chief Executive Officer, provides a detailed overview of the properties of coal wastes as well as some of the documented health risks associated with this form of waste, and presents findings from a number of Virotec projects which have successfully treated wastes from coal mining, coal beneficiation and coal combustion. The projects cover a series of Virotec applications at coal mines and coal-fired power stations in Australia, United Kingdom and the United States.
Coal is one of the world’s most plentiful energy resources, and its widespread use is likely to quadruple by 2020,” said Dr Fergusson, “however, coal mining, coal beneficiation, coal seam gas production, and the combustion of coal in power plants collectively produce large volumes of toxic waste. For example, coal mining generates fine coal washery tailings which can be similar in physical and chemical composition to other mine tailings, semi-liquid coal ‘fly ash’ which is stored in impoundments, and acid mine drainage (AMD). These wastes contain a variety of contaminants, including known carcinogens like arsenic, chromium, mercury and selenium that Virotec has a decade’s worth of experience in treating. It is no great surprise therefore to find that our ViroMine and ViroFlow Technologies successfully ameliorate coal waste. As some forms of coal waste also contain polonium, thallium and radioactive lead, the effective treatment of these wastes should be of paramount concern to society.”
Read more →Virotec Global Solutions today released a new Technical Data Sheet summarising its recent work in treating several different types of waste streams from the coal-fired power generation industry. The Technical Data Sheet, which is available for download from Virotec web site, highlights the work the company has conducted in Australia and USA, and is currently the subject of intensive interest in its ViroFlow™ Technology processes by the U.S. Government.
Dr Lee Fergusson, Virotec’s Chief Executive Officer and principal author of the Technical Data Sheet, noted that “with this new application of ViroFlow™ Technology, we are opening an entirely new area of industry to the company, and we expect to build upon this initial data to implement many more large-scale projects in the future.”
As Dr Fergusson pointed out, coal-fired power plants produce a range of liquid, solid and gaseous waste streams. Depending on the source of the coal being burned in the power generating plant, these waste streams can be extremely contaminated, often with heavy metals such as arsenic and selenium, both known carcinogens. ViroFlow™ Technology removes these hazardous elements from the waste stream, and binds them into non-bioavailable forms, meaning that they are no longer a threat to human, animal or environmental health by being present in forms which make them available to the environment.
The Technical Data Sheet produced summarises Virotec’s work in power plants in South Carolina and North Carolina in the USA and in Queensland, Australia. The work clearly shows that Virotec’s patented technology can effectively treat power plant wastewater and gasses, for example Flue Gas Desulfurisation (“FGD”) wastewater, such that they meet all the guidelines imposed by Environmental Protection Agencies in the relevant jurisdictions.
For example, the Technical Data Sheet presents results which indicate that ViroFlow™ Technology can reduce arsenic in FGD from 200 µg/L (200 parts per billion) to 0.25 µg/L, chromium from 5.2 µg/L to 0.44 µg/L, and iron from 22 µg/L to 6.2 µg/L. In another example, ViroFlow™ Technology reduced mercury in a process called “flue gas scrubbing” by as much as 97%. The findings of the second example were generated as a result of work conducted in the USA by the Environmental Protection Agency.
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