THE first of three purpose-built vessels at the heart of a greenhouse gas reduction program has arrived from Italy and will be road-hauled to Orica Kooragang Island on Tuesday.
An Orica spokesperson said the reactor vessels would be installed on-site with other equipment to deal with nitrous oxide, a byproduct of the nitric acid plant and a major source of greenhouse gas emissions when making ammonium nitrate for mining explosives.
The first "EnviNOx" abatement line would operate from October and the other two would be finished by the end of February.
Orica predicts site-wide emissions reduction of up to 48 per cent.
The project was funded by a $13.06 million grant from the NSW government and a $24 million loan from the federal Clean Energy Finance Corporation.
In statements last year when the project was unveiled, Orica said the EnviNOx technology aimed to capture up to 95 per cent of the nitrous oxide that is the main greenhouse gas produced in making nitric acid.
Nitric acid, in turn. is a key part of the multi-stage process to make Kooragang's main end product, the mining explosive precursor, ammonium nitrate, from natural gas.
"The primary source of GHG emissions at the Kooragang Island facility is from the production of ammonia and nitric acid, both intermediaries in the production of ammonium nitrate," Orica said at the time.
"The production of nitric acid generates nitrous oxide as a by-product of catalytic oxidation of ammonia.
"Orica is upgrading (Kooragang's) three nitric acid processing plants with technology designed to abate nitrous oxide emissions.
"This will be the first time the technology has been deployed in Australia, and is designed to deliver up to 95 per cent abatement efficiency from unabated levels.
"We expect to see a reduction in emissions by 567,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) a year.
"It is expected to reduce the site's total emissions by 48 per cent and deliver a cumulative emissions reduction of at least 4.7 MtCO2e by 2030 based on forecast production."
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