Jun 29 2005
Ausmelt Ltd (AET) advises that the MAPO municipal waste incinerator ash treatment facility in Seoul,Korea, was successfully commissioned on 31st May 2005 and is now in operation.
The MAPO facility, which was designed and constructed by KZ (Korea Zinc) Engineering Corporation, uses Ausmelt’s top submerged lance (TSL) smelting technology to process ash material produced from three incinerators at the Seoul Metropolitan Government’s newly constructed MAPO municipal waste incinerator plant. TSL Technology was selected by the Seoul Metropolitan Government because it was able to meet the Government’s key environmental objective of minimising solid waste materials from the incinerator plant.
The ash produced from municipal waste incinerators is categorised as a toxic waste material because it contains a range of components such as unburnt carbon, glass and heavy metals such as zinc, cadmium and lead. Ausmelt Technology is used to treat the ash in a way that meets the Government’s technical, environmental and economic targets.
The process in operation at the MAPO plant smelts approximately 10,000 tpa of incinerator ash and iron scrap in a molten slag within the Ausmelt furnace. The volatile metals in the ash are fumed and collected in the gas handling system for disposal to landfill, whilst the residual metals are dissolved in the slag and remain fixed once the slag is solid. The slag is granulated to meet defined leaching test standards and is then used in the building industry for brick making or road construction filler.
There are many waste incinerators in operation around the world, and most of them are required to dispose of the ash in hazardous or monitored landfills. However, in the future, this may not be an option. Recognising the potential benefits from the development of this new application of the Ausmelt Technology, Ausmelt and KZ Engineering have already established a Marketing Agreement whereby KZ Engineering has the exclusive right to market and use this new technology application in Korea and Ausmelt retains the marketing rights for the rest of the world. Ausmelt will use the MAPO facility as a reference plant for the marketing of this technology to the operators of other incinerator plants.
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