ANDRITZ to supply the world’s first sulphuric acid plant in pulp mill
Graz, Austria - International technology group ANDRITZ has received an order to supply a sulphuric acid plant for Klabin’s Ortigueira mill in Brazil. The plant will be the first of its kind worldwide and is designed to produce 150 tons of commercialgrade (>98%) sulphuric acid per day from concentrated odorous gases and elemental sulphur.
It will serve Klabin’s Puma I and Puma II pulp lines at the Ortigueira mill when completed and make the mill site completely self-sufficient in sulphuric acid needs.
ANDRITZ will supply technologies on an engineering, procurement and construction contract basis for elemental sulphur handling, sulphur and concentrated non-condensable gases combustion to form sulphur dioxide, sulphur dioxide conversion into concentrated (98% by wt.) sulphuric acid, and a flue gas handling system. The sulphuric acid plant uses wet-gas sulphuric acid (WSA) technology developed by Haldor Topsoe. The WSA technology has been proven in more than 150 references in many industries.
Once the sulphuric acid plant has been started up, it will help Klabin to control the sodium and sulphur (Na/S) balance and the sulphidity of the mill. Also, the resource efficiency of the Ortigueira site will be improved because less sulphate needs to be discharged due to the optimized Na/S balance, there is less truck traffic to the mill due to the chemical savings, and there is also less hazardous truck traffic because sulphur is transported in solid form and not as an acid. The sulphuric acid plant meets very strict air emission limits and does not produce any waste streams.
The technology used for this plant is based on ANDRITZ’s self-developed A-Recovery+ concept that enables pulp mills to extract side streams from the pulping process and turn them into commercialgrade products/commodities. ANDRITZ recently completed successful start-up of the world’s first methanol purification plant based on the A-Recovery+ concept. A-Recovery+ now also offers solutions for the treatment of odorous gases in the pulp and paper industry as well as for production of sulphuric acid from these gases.
