Ensure greater water security and reduce fresh water consumption. Based on these two pillars, the steel maker ArcelorMittal Tobaro in SERA operated a new system. This replaces part of the volume of fresh water consumed by the company, which comes from the Santa Maria da Vitória River, with desalinated seawater.
According to the company’s CEO Benjamin Baptista Filho in Brazil, this will allow greater availability of the resource to society.
According to Benjamin, the plant is a leader not only in Espirito Santo, but also in the world group. The initial capacity of desalination is 500 m³/h of water or 140 liters per second. This amount is enough to supply about 80 thousand people daily. The new system is the result of an investment of R$50 million.
Filho stressed that the production of the plant is in line with the company’s strategy for future water scarcity scenarios. The technology applied is considered to be state-of-the-art. For example, it is quite common in countries such as Israel, Spain, and the United States.
“Our teams conducted studies for nearly two years, evaluating various technical options for desalination, seawater quality analysis, technical discussions with suppliers around the world, laboratory testing, and even an Argentine and U.S. project. Everything is adapted to our reality and expectations”.
The plant was built on an area of 6 thousand square meters. Its consumption should be around 3MW of power. This represents less than 1% of the total energy generated by ArcelorMittal Toubaro, which is self-sustaining.
Priya Mol’s water collection is made
The collection has been made in the Priya Mol area, a kilometer away. Water is pumped out and waste and sand are removed at the treatment plant. The salt is then separated through a process called reverse osmosis. A thin membrane in it retains the salt, allowing only water to move through.
One part results in salty water that is returned to the ocean. According to the CEO of ArcelorMittal, the process will not generate significant environmental impacts. He guaranteed that the entire implementation process was monitored by environmental control bodies such as the Institute for Environment and Water Resources (Iema).
4% of the water used by the company comes from the Santa Maria da Vittoria River.
About 96% of the water the company uses currently comes from the ocean and is used to cool equipment in the steel production process. The other 4% comes from the Santa Maria da Vitória River. With the desalination plant in operation, the company no longer consumes 30% of the river’s water.
The CEO of the steelmaker says that the company is running a project to reduce this consumption rapidly. At present, the company’s freshwater recycling rate is over 97%.
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