The ferro-alloys plant (FAP) of Tata Steel at Joda, one of the earliest continuously operating ferro alloy plants in the country, has attained better environmental norms by installing a standby gas cleaning plant (GCP) for its ferro alloy furnaces.
Through the use of state-of-the-art technology, the unit, located in Keonjhar district of Orissa, has been able to operate at a level of 60-65mg/Nm3 particulate matter (PM) as against the 100mg/ Nm3 permitted by the pollution control authorities.
With the commissioning of this additional facility at a cost of about Rs 1.2 crore, Tata Steel has reiterated its commitment towards environmental protection.
The FAP at Joda has two submerged arc furnaces with wet scrubbing type GCP to clean the exhaust gas before allowing it to the atmosphere. However, for the production of ferro-manganese, operating the furnaces continuously requires operating the GCP continuously.
In order to achieve 100 per cent availability of gas cleaning facilities, this additional GCP has been designed, constructed and erected adjacent to existing GCP with a common gas stack. Care has been taken to reduce the unwanted pipes and bends in the GCP circuit to have maximum efficiency. The equipment for the GCP was procured from Madras Industries Ltd-Chennai.
Established in 1958, the FAP at Joda is the first plant in Asia to have SA 8000 certification. This state-of-the-art plant is capable of producing 50,000 tonnes of manganese alloys (high carbon ferro manganese and high carbon silico manganese) per annum.
