Larox's Efficient Filtration Technology Can Save Money and the Environment
01 June 2009
Larox filters and filtration solutions help customers meet growing environmental requirements and tightening environmental legislation. In addition to savings in energy and water, the amount of waste and other process emissions can be significantly reduced.
According to the European Chemical Industry Council (CEFIC) "the chemical industry actively seeks to develop innovative manufacturing processes that minimise the burden on the environment." There are a number of global, national, industry-wide or company level sustainability programmes and projects all aiming at the same goal: reducing environmental impact of the operations. This same goal is supported by Larox's filtration solutions for the separation of solid and liquid substances.
Mr Reiner Weidner, vice president for Larox, said: "Efficient solid-liquid separation technology leads to both economical and environmental benefits. Our customers acquire Larox technology either because they have high quality, capacity and productivity objectives, or because they need to satisfy environmental regulations and legislation."
Reducing environmental impact
Mr Weidner said: "Environmental impact depends on many variables. It depends on the industry, application, product and process itself. Larox filters are used for a wide variety of applications which means the environmental benefits vary as well.
"Larox's filters and filtration solutions are designed in such a way that in most of the processes they help to achieve significant savings in energy and/or water consumption. Efficient filtration also leads to better quality waste water, thus reducing the environmental burden."
Due to tightening environmental legislation and requirements, demand for Larox's filtration technology is growing. However, as Mr Weidner points out, investing in a new technology is not always necessary: "Major environmental improvements can be achieved through modernisations and process optimisation projects. Larox also has solutions for these customer needs."
Less waste - environmental success story
In 2007, Larox supplied a Larox C Series automatic pressure filter to Stora Enso Fluting mill, located in Heinola, Finland. Larox's solution for the green liquor dregs filtration enabled the plant to meet the increasingly stringent waste handling requirements. Stora Enso's power plant manager, Mr Erkki Vuori, said: "Due to the efficient dewatering process of the filter, our dump volume and waste transportation costs were reduced by 70%. The cake moisture dropped to below 20%, i.e. the dry solids in the filter cake are now over 80%."
Saving energy and water - environmental success story
Larox C Series Automatic Pressure Filters have proven to bring major economical and environmental advantages when replacing traditional centrifuge-based technology in the production of modified starch.
In a case study presented by Mr Jin Shuren, chairman of the Sugar Alcohol Committee under the China Starch Association, centrifuge and Larox's filtration technologies were compared and results calculated.
The study concluded that, in addition to many other environmental benefits, Larox filter's energy consumption was 84% lower than that of the centrifuge and water consumption was reduced by 90%.
It was calculated that the economical benefit with the Larox solution amounted to approximately $410,000 in savings for a plant with a starch capacity of 30,000t/year.
