2023 marks the tenth anniversary of our REACT-Sys® spent carbon reactivation process at the Puragen facility in Immingham, Lincs.
The initial facility, which we called CR1 (carbon reactivation 1), involved a 3,000 tpa rotary kiln, which we used for recycling spent carbons from ‘amber list’ industrial applications such as biogas purification, odour control, waste water treatment and VOC abatement.
We soon filled this capacity, so in 2018 we invested in a much larger ‘amber list’ kiln, which we imaginatively called CR2, in a brand new building on the Immingham site, and converted CR1 to handle spent carbons from the drinking water sector. This major upgrade not only allowed us to significantly increase our throughput of spent industrial carbons, but also allowed us to start competing for major drinking water reactivation tenders, in which we have enjoyed a great deal of success.
Our latest development is a third facility, CR3, which will handle spent carbons that were traditionally considered difficult/impossible to reactivate, notably ‘heavily loaded’ spent carbons from the biogas/biomethane industry. These carbons, particularly impregnated carbons, can often hold in excess of 60% by weight of sulfur (from H2S in the biogas stream) which, in a regular reactivation process, would generate sulfur deposits inside the kiln and also create sulfurous acid (causes acid rain), as well as emissions of SO2 (toxic). We have developed a novel process that can handle these ‘difficult’ spent carbons without causing any SO2/acid emissions, meaning it will be possible to recycle far more spent carbons in the future.
Over the past decade, we have recycled tens of thousands of tonnes of spent activated carbon via our thermal reactivation process, not only saving it from costly disposal, but also generating a huge saving in CO2 footprint (>90%) compared with the production/import/use/disposal of virgin materials. We can all be hugely proud of this achievement.
Pictured here are our CR1 and CR2 facilities and our Head of Projects, Patrick Riley, who was part of the Australian OEM engineering team who came to the UK to install the original kiln back in 2013, and who decided to join the Puragen family and make the UK his permanent home!
Our reactivation facility is accredited to the latest quality (ISO9001), environmental (ISO14001) and health & safety (ISO45001) standards and the company holds both EU and UK REACH accreditations. The company is also a proud member of the Renewable Energy Associations (REA) and the Institute of Water (IoW).
Photography by David Reay.
