SCA invests SEK 50 million ($6 million) to reduce environmental impact from its Härnösand pellet mill I Sweden and to reduce discomforts for neighbours. The investments comprise among other items a wet electrical filter. The whole project will be operational by the summer 2022.
Since 1992, wood fuel pellets are produced at the Murbergsviken industrial site in Härnösand. In the drying process, terpenes and resin acids – natural substances in wood - are emitted. When vapour and particles are subject to sunlight, sometimes a refraction phenomenon occurs that makes the vapours look blueish and they may have an odd smell.
“We now invest in new technology, a wet electrical filter, to better contain particles and thereby minimize the occasions when blue haze occurs,” says Per-Arne Persson, mill manager at SCA Bionorr.
SCA will make technical measurements to confirm improved performance after the project is finished, but an important contribution will be the input from a local “odour panel”, that SCA will engage during the project.
In addition to this, a project is run to further improve the treatment of process and surface water. A new sedimentation basin is already in use and another one is being constructed and will be operational in the autumn of 2021.
SCA’s pellets are produced from residue products from the forest industry in the form of sawdust from the company’s sawmills.
Source: Lesprom Network