Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works (MMK) has commissioned sinter plant No. 5, the only one of its kind in Russia. The facility has a capacity of up to 5.5 million tons of sinter per year.
MMK’s new sinter plant is equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, allowing it to obtain high-quality sinter, and it operates using the best available technologies.
“This project will significantly reduce the plant’s impact on the environment,” said Victor Rashnikov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of MMK. “Commissioning of the new sinter plant will also ensure a significant increase in environmental safety. This is part of MMK’s large-scale investment strategy, aimed at completely modernizing all production equipment in the first stage of processing.”
The cost of contract equipment supplied by Sinosteel Equipment & Engineering Co. Ltd (China) amounted to 6.7 billion rubles. Total capital investments in the sinter plant complex, including construction and installation works, amounted to around 30 billion rubles.
The sintering area of the sintering machines Nos. 1 and 2, which are part of the new sinter plant, is 300 square meters for each sinter line, and the height of the sintering layer is 700 mm. For comparison: at the sintering plant No. 4, which will be decommissioned with the launch of the fifth, the sintering area is 95.4 square meters and the layer height is 280-290 mm. The amount of fine particles (0-5 mm pieces) produced at the new sinter plant will be reduced from 10% to 5%. The capacity of the new unit is 347.2 tons of sinter per hour.
The new sinter plant is equipped with 19 highly efficient environment-protection units. Each sintering machine includes a sulfur recovery unit and a system for the recirculation of sinter gases, which ensures the purification of the entire volume of exhaust gases. The sulfur recovery unit consists of a two-section electric filter (dust cleaning) and an absorption tower, which uses lime solution (for the cleaning of sulfur compounds). Sulfur recovery units are capable of cleaning up to 2.5 million cubic meters of sinter gases per hour with 99% efficiency rate for dust and 98% efficiency rate for sulfur dioxide.
In addition, in terms of environmental facilities at the plant, there are eleven air-cleaning systems, which catch industrial dust, which is then returned to sinter production, which have a cleaning efficiency of more than 99%. Launch of the sulfur recovery units at full capacity, and the resulting sludge deposit from the units results in the production of a marketable gypsum. The water circulating supply system of the sinter plant allows for the collection, removal and reuse of wastewater from the industrial site.
The commissioning of the new sinter plant will make it possible to decommission the outdated equipment at sinter plant No. 4. As a result, it will be possible to achieve:
– a 2-fold reduction in dust emissions (by 2,100 tons per year), a 4-fold reduction in sulfur dioxide emissions (by 3,500 tons per year) and a 16-fold reduction in benzapyrene emissions;
– a reduction in discharges of pollutants into the water circulating supply system by 600 tons per year;
– a reduction in waste at the slurry deposit No. 2 of the sintering plant by 13,750 tons per year.
When working at full capacity, sinter plant No. 5 will be able to produce 5.5 million tons of stabilized cooled sinter per year, which will provide the MMK blast furnace plant with high-quality raw materials and will improve the efficiency of sinter and blast furnace production. Working conditions for MMK sinter workers will improve thanks to the environmental facilities at the new sinter plant.
The general contractors of the steel construction were Montazhnik, Prokatmontazh, Building Complex, Maglin, OKS; the general designer of the plant was Magnitogorsk GIPROMEZ. (MMK/Ukrainian metal)