Mechel OAO, one of the leading Russian mining and metals companies, has put a biochemical cleaning facility in operation to treat phenolic waste water from Mechel-Coke’s coke and chemicals production process. Mechel-Coke is part of Mechel Group’s mining division, operating on Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant’s industrial base.The new biochemical facility’s launch is part of Chelyabinsk’s long-term environment protection program. It enables the deep cleansing all of the waste water produced by Mechel-Coke, which is used for slaking coke, and decreases waste emissions by half.The new facility was designed by Eastern Coal and Chemical Research Institute in Yekaterinburg and neutralises waste water by applying special complexes of phenol-destroying microorganisms, which break the waste into water and carbon dioxide. This technology allows the company to thoroughly cleanse its emissions of phenols, thiocyanates and ammonium nitrogen and ensures higher neutralisation efficiency. The investment to construct this biochemical facility totalled some 900 million rubles ($27.5 million).
“The launch of Mechel-Coke OOO’s biochemical waste water cleansing facility is part of the ecological program Mechel is implementing at Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant’s industrial area, which is subject to a sweeping modernisation of its technical facilities. Every one of Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant’s investment projects provides funds for environmental protection measures and introducing new equipment that will decrease or neutralize industrial waste, which helps to dramatically reduce the impact on the environment,” Mechel-Steel Management Company OOO’s Chief Executive Officer Andrei Deineko noted.
Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, in Chelyabinsk Region, Russia is a full-cycle steel plant. The plant has a diverse range of products: coke, pig iron, rolled steel, semi-finished rolled products in carbon and specialty steels, and forged billets. The plant is certified under the ISO 9001:2000 international standard. It is one of the few Russian companies entitled to assign its own code – ChS (for Chelyabinsk Steel) – to its products. The plant manufactures more than 130 grades of this steel indicating proven quality.
