Hindustan Zinc to set up Zinc Fumer Plant for Rs 570 cr

Hindustan Zinc will set up its first Zinc Fumer Plant by 2018 in Rajasthan at an estimated expenditure of Rs 570 crore.
The plant will extract metals from waste and produce about 3,000 tonnes of zinc per annum.
Hindustan Zinc has placed formal order with Chinese firm Nonferrous Metal Industry's Foreign Engineering & Construction Co Ltd (NFC) and we are expecting to commission the first Zinc Fumer Plant by the middle of 2018, Hindustan Zinc CEO Sunil Duggal told PTI.
"The first Zinc Fumer Plant is being commissioned by Hindustan Zinc at Chanderiya with a cost of Rs 570 crore and will improve recovery of Zinc from 96.8 per cent to 97.5 per cent that would add about 3,000 tonnes of Zinc from just one smelter per annum," Duggal said.

He said while treating waste, the Zinc Fuming Plant will also produce a large quantity of slag that would be fully utilised by the cement industry.
The most advanced global zinc production technology, hydro-metallurgical, generates jarosite as part of the metallurgical process to produce zinc, he said, adding that due to generation of jarosite waste as part of the process, there has been a significant loss of metals like zinc, lead, copper, silver and other minor metals in the waste.

Duggal said the most successful process for recovery of metals without producing jarosite is Zinc Fumer Plant.
Currently, Zinc Fumer Plants are installed in few Chinese and Korean plants and are quite successful. Zinc Fumer Plant not only deviates from the process of forming jarosite instead recovers the metals from the waste.

As per estimates, Hindustan Zinc loses about 27,000 tonnes of metals per annum in this waste.
The Zinc Fumer Plant is expected to increase lead and silver production by about 4,700 tonnes and 33 tonnes per annum, respectively.
The Chanderiya Hydro-II Smelter of Hindustan Zinc has a capacity to produce 210,000 tonnes of zinc.
Hindustan Zinc has capacity to produce about 825,000 tonnes of zinc, 180,000 tonnes of Lead and about 500 tonnes of silver.
The company said it has plans to put-up Zinc Fumer Plants at its other Smelting Complexes - Hydro-I in Chanderiya and Dariba Smelting Complex in Rajsamand.

The company said once the commissioning is completed at all the three locations, the capacity of zinc, lead and silver is likely to increase significantly.