13August09

Virotec Global Solutions today released a new Technical Data Sheet summarising its recent work in treating several different types of waste streams from the coal-fired power generation industry. The Technical Data Sheet, which is available for download from Virotec web site, highlights the work the company has conducted in Australia and USA, and is currently the subject of intensive interest in its ViroFlow™ Technology processes by the U.S. Government.

Dr Lee Fergusson, Virotec’s Chief Executive Officer and principal author of the Technical Data Sheet, noted that “with this new application of ViroFlow™ Technology, we are opening an entirely new area of industry to the company, and we expect to build upon this initial data to implement many more large-scale projects in the future.”

As Dr Fergusson pointed out, coal-fired power plants produce a range of liquid, solid and gaseous waste streams. Depending on the source of the coal being burned in the power generating plant, these waste streams can be extremely contaminated, often with heavy metals such as arsenic and selenium, both known carcinogens. ViroFlow™ Technology removes these hazardous elements from the waste stream, and binds them into non-bioavailable forms, meaning that they are no longer a threat to human, animal or environmental health by being present in forms which make them available to the environment.

The Technical Data Sheet produced summarises Virotec’s work in power plants in South Carolina and North Carolina in the USA and in Queensland, Australia. The work clearly shows that Virotec’s patented technology can effectively treat power plant wastewater and gasses, for example Flue Gas Desulfurisation (“FGD”) wastewater, such that they meet all the guidelines imposed by Environmental Protection Agencies in the relevant jurisdictions.

For example, the Technical Data Sheet presents results which indicate that ViroFlow™ Technology can reduce arsenic in FGD from 200 µg/L (200 parts per billion) to 0.25 µg/L, chromium from 5.2 µg/L to 0.44 µg/L, and iron from 22 µg/L to 6.2 µg/L. In another example, ViroFlow™ Technology reduced mercury in a process called “flue gas scrubbing” by as much as 97%. The findings of the second example were generated as a result of work conducted in the USA by the Environmental Protection Agency.

These results mean that power stations now have a viable and cost-effective solution for treating their vast quantities of wastewater, solids and gasses, and thereby operate within their approved discharge limits.