Drawing of a Qatalum gas treatment centre

Christian Gonzalez, key account director, Fives Solios, and Fabienne Virieux, its communications manager, discuss how the company is making a difference at Qatalum

Qatalum, a joint venture between Qatar Petroleum and Hydro Aluminium AS, is building the most efficient aluminium smelter in the world with the aim of minimising its environmental impact. The smelter, located in the Messaied Industrial area of Qatar, will have an initial capacity of 585,000 tonnes per year of aluminium. This will be achieved with two lines, each of 352 pots operating at 300 kA based on the Hydro Aluminium HAL275 technology. Full production capacity should be reached by the end of 2010.
In order to achieve their objectives in terms of environmental protection, safety and performance, Qatalum has selected Fives Solios’ innovative solutions for environmental protection, safety and performance. These are a result of Fives Group’s active strategy of research and development implemented over recent years. Indeed, Fives Solios has been awarded the following contracts in every area of the smelter:

Reduction
• An EPC contract for four gas treatment centres and the alumina and material transport systems.
Each of the gas treatment centres will be equipped with YPRIOS, the optimum solution for lower potroom emissions. Removing hoods from pots during maintenance operations (anode changes, etc.) increases atmospheric pollution. To reduce the impact of these emissions, Fives Solios proposes an extra suction system called YPRIOS. Once activated, YPRIOS will reduce HF emissions by around 40 per cent at potroom roof level.
The three alumina and material transport systems will include four alumina distributing systems to the pots, two aluminium fluoride distributing systems to the pots and two anode cover material distributing systems.
Each of the GTC’s will also be supplemented downstream by four sea water scrubbers: gases from the 704 electrolysis pots are desulphurised in the wet scrubbers by means of around 16,000 m3/h of sea water in an open circuit pass without any chemical additive. This will be the first GTC wet scrubbers of international standard to be applied in the Gulf area.

Carbon
• An EPC contract for a 60 t/hour green anode plant including the coke and pitch unloading facilities, the carbon butts recycling units as well as the fines pneumatic transportation system. This plant will have the highest capacity ever reached worldwide.
This high capacity green anode plant will feature Rhodax technology, the natural dry mix solution, for dry material preparation and IMC (Intensive Mixing Cascade) technology for paste preparation along with Xelios, the anode forming solution serving the electrolysis, which is Fives Solios’ new high-performance vibrocompacting unit. The combination of these latest technological developments leads to a production capacity of high-quality anodes with minimal impact on the environment. Moreover, this high capacity green anode plant brings significant investment and operating costs compared to conventional plants.
Meanwhile, to meet the highest environmental standards, this green anode plant will be equipped with Eolios, which combines a Fives Solios pitch fume dry scrubber and a RTO (regenerative thermal oxidiser). Eolios allows the reduction of pitch emission especially regarding light volatile organic compounds with an overall efficiency of 99 per cent on PAH components.
• a contract for the Liquid Pitch Marine Terminal including the ship unloading facility, two 12,000 t capacity storage tanks and the trucks unloading station, through SNC Lavalin, the EPC contractor for the service area and potroom building,
The Marine Terminal will be equipped with magnetic coupling pumps to avoid any leakage and the pitch vapour will be treated by RCO (regenerative catalytic oxidiser) for a healthier environment during ships operation.
• a contract for  the firing equipment and Control system and the Fume Treatment Centre for the two anode baking furnaces, through FATA EPC/K HOME International, the EPC contractor for the anode baking plant.
The FTC dry scrubber will achieve the must stringent emissions regulations not only in matter of floor and dust emissions but also for PAH16 emissions (the 16 most dangerous polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) lower than 1 mg/Nm3.

Casthouse
• A contract for 11 holding and melting  furnaces: 6x 55T and 5x 66T capacity, along with two water cooling systems (2x VDC @ 75T/Hr cast tables and 3x ICM @ 75T/Hr), through Fata EPC/K Home International, the EPC contractor for the casthouse.
The furnaces will be designed according to Hydro Aluminium technological requirements and seven of them will be equipped with electromagnetic stirrers.
From an environmental point of view, these furnaces will be equipped with emission monitoring at the stack and the heat losses are very low. The Water Cooling system will be fitted with heat exchangers to avoid loss in water treatment and the water consumption is reduced by 90 per cent compared to a standard cooling tower.
The whole energy consumption is reduced thanks to the furnaces door design, the reduced cycle time, the efficient burner system and the state-of-the-art refractories. The velocity water flows towards the WCS is low and can provide 60 per cent of the -electrical energy costs.
All these contracts are on a turnkey basis and were obtained after a tough international competition. They confirm Fives Solios capability of managing international projects and highlight the synergies between the three Fives Solios companies: Solios Environnement, Solios Carbone and Solios Thermal.
Fives Solios is recognised worldwide for its ability to offer high performance solutions combining technology, safety and cost-effectiveness.
The award of these contracts follows the successful completion of the Alba line 5 project in Bahrain, the Alcoa Fjardaal project in Iceland and the Sohar Aluminium smelter in Oman -confirming the leading position of Fives Solios in the field of primary aluminium production.
Fives Solios is the aluminium business unit of Fives Group, a major industrial engineering group, with revenues exceeding 1.5 billion euros in the fields of automotive, metal, cement and energy.