Facility

The Steel Dust Recycling plant will consist of a conditioning, blending and pelletizing facilities for the EAF dust to be processed, a Waelz Kiln for processing the steel dust, storage and loading facilities for products to be sold, and the latest environmental control systems. The facility is located on 66 acres near Millport, Alabama. The SDR site has direct access to four major rail carriers and is near multiple Interstate highways.

Developed in 1910, the Waelz Kiln is a proven technology for high-temperature metals recovery (HTMR) of EAF waste. The result is more highly concentrated zinc oxides which are used as raw materials for zinc smelters. While many other technologies have been successfully tested for processing steel dust, none have proven as economically feasible as the Waelz Kiln process, which remains the best demonstrated available technology for recycling steel dust. The SDR plant will be the first grenfield Waelz Kiln plant in the United States designed and constructed for the purpose of recycling EAF dust and will feature the latest environmental control technologies.

The Waelz kiln at the SDR plant will be capable of processing up to 110,000 tons of steel mill dust annually. The raw materials will be conditioned, blended, pellitized and cured before being charged to the rotary kiln. In the Waelz Kiln the charge materials will be heated to temperatures above 1300 degrees Centigrade and the Zinc contained in the charge will be reduced, vaporized and re-oxidized. The gas containing the oxidized zinc is cooled and the Waelz Zinc Oxide is collected in a product bag collector. The Waelz Zinc Oxide goes to zinc smelters as a raw material, and the remaining material -- called Waelz Iron Product -- can be used in the manufacture of cement and asphalt.