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Calgon Carbon adds activated-carbon production capacity in Belgium

| By Mary Bailey

Calgon Carbon Corp. (Pittsburgh, Pa.), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kuraray Co., announced that it will add an industrial reactivation furnace at its Chemviron operations in Feluy, Belgium. The Feluy site is the largest reactivation facility in the world, and this new furnace will add 11,000 metric tons per year (m.t./yr; 24 million pounds/yr) to the site’s total capacity.

Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, Jim Coccagno, said, “The activated carbon market for industrial applications is expected to continue to grow. This new reactivation furnace will allow us to meet European industrial customer needs while keeping more product from landfills or incineration, and thus participate actively in the sustainable use of natural resources and reduction of CO2 emissions.”

“Chemviron has been a leading reactivator in Europe for over 80 years. Here in Belgium we started reactivating spent carbon in 1974,” said Reinier Keijzer, President of Chemviron. “This new multi-hearth furnace will ensure that Chemviron continues to provide top quality reactivation service to its customers.”

Activated carbon is used to adsorb a wide range of compounds from liquids and gases by a process known as “adsorption.” Through adsorption, molecules contained in liquid or gas are attracted and retained on a solid surface.

Once activated carbon is saturated, or the treatment objective is reached, it is referred to as “spent carbon.” Spent carbon has insufficient adsorption capacity left for the intended application.

Unlike powdered forms of activated carbon, spent granular and extruded carbon can typically be recycled, by thermal reactivation, for reuse. Reactivation is a process defined as “the return of spent carbon to an acceptable activity level necessary for the application in which it is used.

Reactivation involves treating the spent carbon in a high temperature reactivation furnace, reaching temperatures of up to 950°C (1742°F), by carefully controlling operating parameters such as residence time, temperature profile and gas composition. During this treatment process, the undesirable organics on the carbon are thermally destroyed.