Enhancing Our Competitiveness Through Adaptive Technological Innovation

Project ID: GINOP-2.1.8-17-2018-02829

Project Overview

Our company’s main activities include the incineration-based disposal of hazardous waste and the treatment and purification of industrial wastewater. Hazardous waste is treated at a waste incineration facility with an annual capacity of 20,600 tons, utilizing various incineration technologies.

At present, there is no reliable treatment method available in Hungary—or, to our knowledge, in the surrounding region—that can process catalytic waste from the automotive and chemical industries using an environmentally friendly approach, while simultaneously recovering materials that can be reused as valuable raw materials in the economy.

We aim to seize the opportunity inherent in this challenge and develop a technology that can be implemented in an industrial environment. The planned technology involves two critical successive steps: the thermal treatment of catalytic waste for disposal, followed by the preparation of the resulting slag for further processing (to recover precious metals, rare earth elements, and other marketable metals).

The equipment being procured now provides an effective solution to the latter issue. Currently, heat exchanger elements must be cleaned after 72 hours of operation, as contaminants deposited on the heat transfer surfaces tend to form a continuous solid layer. These deposits can only be removed using special manual tools and considerable physical effort. However, this manual process has several disadvantages: achieving the desired level of surface cleanliness is difficult, and it can easily damage the equipment or—even worse—lead to its failure. Furthermore, the cleaning process requires significant labor time and must be performed frequently, both of which contribute to additional costs.

SOLUTION

To address the issue outlined above, we are modernizing our current system through the acquisition of a HAMMELMAN HDP 142 high-pressure unit driven by an electric motor, along with the necessary auxiliary equipment, within the framework of this project.

The complex equipment being procured under this project is capable of achieving a higher and more consistent level of cleanliness. Operating within an extremely high-pressure range, this new cleaning technology can remove contaminants from metal surfaces far more reliably and efficiently than manual methods. Achieving a higher level of surface cleanliness positively affects the frequency of cleaning operations, as the contamination of the surfaces occurs more slowly and reaches the intervention threshold later. Consequently, fewer cleaning cycles allow for more reliable and predictable operations. Additionally, this results in reduced operating costs, more efficient performance for ÉMK Ltd., and improved job retention capacity.

The project is co-financed by the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund as part of the Economic Development and Innovation Operational Programme.