Aker Solutions :: Acid Plants

From its headquarters in Vancouver, Canada and its fabrication facility in Toronto, Canada, Chemetics services clients in the nonferrous metallurgical, fertiliser and chemical industries around the globe by providing engineering, equipment and complete turnkey plants for sulphuric acid manufacture and sulphuric and nitric acid concentration.

Supported by research and development at its Technology Centre, Chemetics has maintained a leadership role in process technology, equipment design, and the materials of construction that are incorporated into its high quality plants.

Chemetics continued success depends on its focus on understanding client requirements – all Chemetics plants and equipment items are specifically custom designed so that clients’ needs are fully satisfied. Chemetics capabilities range from the performance of engineering studies through to undertaking of turnkey projects.

Chemetics specialises in custom designing plants to treat sulphurous feeds from a wide range of sources and for many industries, including:

Off-gases from copper, zinc and lead smelters to comply with emission regulations
Liquid and solid sulphur for acid manufacture for fertilisers and metal leaching
Spent acids from alkylation, methyl methacrylate (MMA) processes and waste water from acrylonitrile (AN) manufacturing.

Chemetics plants, which are all specifically designed to meet client requirements include:

Single and double absorption contact plants
Wet gas cleaning systems
Tail gas and start up scrubber systems (hydrogen peroxide/caustic/ammonia)
Oleum production systems
Liquid SO2 plants
Wet gas cleaning – effluent treatment plants
Sulphur handling systems
Sulphur and acid storage
Energy recovery systems ALPHA
Direct contact plants (DIRCON)

Chemetics acid recovery and concentration technologies are also applied to effluent treatment plants, which are being increasingly required to treat the liquid effluent resulting from the wet gas cleaning sections of metallurgical sulphuric acid plants.

Chemetics can offer treatment for these weak acids which are often contaminated with a variety of heavy metals, including arsenic, selenium and mercury. In many cases these weak acids are neutralised to produce gypsum.

Chemetics offers technologies and techniques to separate contaminants from the gypsum to produce a saleable product and an environmentally safe solid effluent, or alternatively, clean and concentrate the weak acid to produce a commercial grade acid.