Patiala, September 24, 2017: A pilot zinc recovery plant set up by M/s Madhav Alloys Pvt. Ltd. situated at Gobindgarh was today inaugurated by K.S Pannu, Chairman, Punjab pollution control Board. This plant, which is the first of its kind in the country, will use the hazardous waste of induction furnaces and recover valuable metals. This will help in reducing the pollution load in the environment.
This plant is the result of consistent efforts of the Board to persuade the industrial units in Punjab to adopt waste minimization techniques by way of recovery of useful products from the hazardous wastes being generated by them. The induction furnace industries, mainly in Mandi Gobindgarh and Ludhiana, produce dust as air emissions which is collected through Air Pollution Control Devices (APCD) and this dust is hazardous in nature but rich in many metals.
With the proactive role and persuasion made by the Board, M/s Madhav Alloys Pvt. Ltd. has set up a plant, after two years of intensive R&D for the recovery of zinc in the form of metal and also valuable sludge containing iron and lead from industrial dust. This is done as per the Standard Operating Procedure laid down by the Board.
The new plant set up near Gobindgarh has the capacity to handle 10 Tonns of waste dust of induction furnaces per day to recover 4 Tons of zinc per day and it involves the processes like calcination, precipitation of iron, lead & copper in the form of sludge and electrolysis.
Meanwhile, PPCB, Chairman, K.S Pannu informed that Board is making efforts to develop technology to recover zinc from the effluent of electroplating industries which will help to reduce the pollution load of sewage water in Ludhiana . He further said that Board is in advanced stage of setting up units for recovering valuable ferrous and ferric chloride from hydrochloric acid based effluent of pickling units manufacturing engineering goods based in Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Mohali. He further stated that Board has started research for recovering zink from effluent of electroplating industry mainly spread in Ludhiana.