Thermal Energy Systems formed the joint venture company 3T's Australia Pty Ltd. with Howden Group SA This company was successful with a number of projects including scrubbers on the ore driers at the BHP HBI facility in Port Hedland. Project managers and engineers were Hatch and Associates from their office in Perth.
The plant supplied was a retrofit of existing scrubbers that were plagued with problems from the original installation.
- The fan impellers were subject to build-up and out of balance over a relatively short time forcing unplanned shutdowns for cleaning.
- Emission standards were not always achieved and the stack plume was visibile and attracted unfavourable attention.
- The prevailing wind blew across the scrubber plume and into the main process building. This was thought to be the source of fine iron oxide particles becoming embedded in workers eyes.
The retrofit scrubbers were required to achieve:
- Drier exhaust volume ±250,000Nm³/hr.
- Turndown required to ±130,000Nm³/hr.
- Gas inlet temperature ±90°C.
- Specified guarantee emission level - sub 20mg/Nm³.
- A stack with no visible plume.
(The image on the far right is the output of a CAD model prepared by Hatch and Associates to plan for the integration of the new scrubbers into the existing plant.)
