For many years, Veolia has been building its brand on the idea of “Resourcing the World” and contributing to the circular economy. The circular economy delivers value by diverting waste from landfills, moving materials up the waste hierarchy and producing quality materials and products that are competitively priced and have a smaller environmental footprint than those made with virgin materials. Simply put, the circular economy designs out waste, reusing and recycling everything that is produced.
According to research published by Accenture, “The circular economy could generate $4.5 trillion of additional economic output by 2030.” The research finds “today’s business practices will contribute to a global gap of 8 billion tons between the supply and demand of natural resources by 2030.”
By giving value to something that was seen as worthless, Veolia secures supplies for industry and municipalities, reducing their expenses and creating revenue streams. For example, Veolia solutions help turn wastewater into bioplastics, waste cooking oil into biofuel and scrap metal into secondary raw materials. According to Steve Hopper, president and chief operating officer of Veolia North America’s Industrial Business, “We help our customers recover and extract value from their process material streams. Our operational and technical expertise, combined with deep, collaborative customer relationships, allows us to develop recovery, recycling and regeneration solutions that bridge the circular economy supply chain. In reality, Veolia becomes the ‘missing link’ in their supply chain loop.”
In North America, Veolia has long been turning industrial customers’ environmental challenges into solutions driven from a circular economy mindset. How? By viewing waste disposal as an opportunity to create an energy source, or making new products through solvent reclamation processes and beneficial reuse programs.
For example, right now, Veolia is building a $275 million produced water treatment facility in Appalachia, West Virginia, for Antero Resources, an independent exploration and production company. Once commissioned in late 2017, Veolia will operate this ultra-modern facility with capacity to treat 60,000 barrels per day of flowback and produced water generated by Antero’s Marcellus Shale drilling activities. It’s a circular economy solution for Antero that delivers on “both greens” — making environmental and financial sense. The plant provides a long-term, permanent treatment solution for produced water that also extracts resources like salts for beneficial reuse. It mitigates the liability, logistics and expense of hauling water over the road for deep well injection, and reduces the amount of fresh water required by Antero’s drilling operations. In total, this plant is anticipated to save Antero $150,000 per well, reduce truck traffic by more than 10 million miles annually and reduce its GHGs by at least 30,000 tons per year.
Another example is Veolia’s potassium hydroxide (KOH) recycling process. Half of all gasoline made at U.S. oil refineries uses a hydrofluoric acid (HF) catalyst in the manufacturing process. Part of this acid must be neutralized with a base chemical, often KOH. The resulting material, potassium fluoride (KF), used to always be disposed as a hazardous waste. However, through innovation and technology, Veolia found a solution to utilize the KF as an ingredient in an industrial process to generate KOH that can be reused in the same refining process. Today, for every 100 pounds of KOH used, approximately 95 pounds is recovered as feedstock for Veolia’s KOH recycling process and returned to U.S. refineries for use in their alkylation processes. No hazardous waste is generated in the recycling process. This process uses 34-percent less energy and millions of fewer gallons of fresh water versus the manufacturing processes that produce virgin KOH product. It also saves refiners considerable money when compared to the expense of buying virgin solvent.
Expanding regeneration offerings
Veolia is focusing its growth strategy around driving a more circular economy and, as such, purchased Chemours’ sulfur products division assets earlier this year. The activities have been integrated into Veolia’s Industrial Business. At seven plants across the country, elemental sulfur, spent sulfuric acid and sulfur gases are used to produce clean fuming and non-fuming sulfuric acids and other high-value sulfur derivative (HVSD) products for use in a wide range of industrial activities.
Investing in the sulfur products division makes strategic sense for Veolia for several reasons. “Sulfuric acid is one of two critical catalysts for the refining market, which represents our largest industrial customer segment in North America,” said Hopper. “The other is hydrofluoric acid, which is a feedstock in Veolia’s existing KOH recycling process. By adding sulfuric acid production and regeneration capabilities, we can offer a circular-economy solution to every refinery with an alkylation unit. This is a major differentiator for Veolia in the marketplace that moves us up the value chain with our refinery customer base.”
And while sulfuric acid has major application in the refining industry, oil and gas isn’t the only industry that relies on it. In fact, sulfuric acid is produced and consumed more than any other chemical in the world and is used in some capacity by nearly every industry, including fertilizers, chemical manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, personal care and electronics, among others.
Jim Pawloski, senior vice president of operations for Veolia’s Industrial Business, is leading the new Regeneration Services business line. “Veolia has a long history of success with long-term operations and maintenance agreements in the water/wastewater sector. This experience, combined with our existing capabilities for industrial cleaning and maintenance solutions for acidic environments and our waste-related management services, including innovative and compliant alternatives to help reduce the total volume of waste disposal requirements, makes us well suited to run this business effectively and grow it quickly,” said Pawloski.
Sulfuric acid regeneration
The new Regeneration Services operating line includes seven plants with varying capabilities to provide spent acid regeneration, convert sulfur gas to sulfuric acid, and directly produce sulfuric acid and other sulfur-based products from elemental sulfur.
Veolia has four sulfuric acid production facilities that convert raw sulfur and/or spent acid into sulfuric acid of various concentrations, such as high-value sulfur derivatives (HVSDs) like oleum. These are located in Darrow, Louisiana (Burnside plant); Wurtland, Kentucky (Wurtland plant); Cincinnati, Ohio (Fort Hill plant); and Richmond, Virginia (James River plant).
Additionally, there are three other plants in Veolia’s portfolio that are situated on or adjacent to refinery properties and provide sulfuric acid regeneration and sulfur gas recovery solutions. These include the Morses Mill plant in New Jersey; Borderland in El Paso, Texas; and Red Lion in Delaware. “Each of the acid plants in our portfolio is unique, from the sulfur-based products manufactured to the transportation methods accepted to the customer base served,” said Paul Lancaster, operations manager for the Regeneration Services operating line.
The Red Lion facility is one unique plant in the portfolio because, in addition to providing spent acid regeneration and sulfur gas recovery, this plant also has an on-site sulfur pit, which can be used to supplement acid production if volume intake of spent acid or sulfur gas is down for any reason. The Red Lion plant is also where one of Veolia’s proprietary methodologies for industrial cleaning in acidic environments was developed. “As an alternative to the standard industry practice of cleaning heat exchangers with high-pressure water, Veolia’s operational and technical experts designed a cleaning methodology that used mineral oil as the cleaning agent,” said Lancaster. Unlike water, mineral oil is not reactive with sulfuric acid and eliminated the corrosion and emissions issues that plagued the previous, water-based cleaning processes. “By combining the mineral oil cleaning solution with Veolia’s own Hands Free™ tooling and custom-designed nozzles, we were able to safely and effectively restore this exchanger to 100-percent capacity in only nine days, without emission issues or compromising the safety of personnel on-site,” said Lancaster.
Veolia’s largest facility is Burnside, which is located in Darrow on the Mississippi River. The plant was commissioned in 1967 and has been continuously maintained and expanded to respond to the demands of customers on the Gulf Coast. It receives spent acid from various refineries and other customers and regenerates it into fresh acid that is sent back to the customers for reuse. It also has a large sulfur-burning furnace on-site for producing sulfuric acid and other HVSD products from elemental sulfur. Interestingly, this is the only plant in Veolia’s portfolio that can accept shipments via barge in addition to tanker trucks and rail cars.
The James River plant in Richmond is another location where Veolia takes elemental sulfur and produces various grades of fuming and non-fuming acids. “What makes James River unique is that it is the exclusive producer of a sulfur product that DuPont uses to make its Kevlar® products,” said Todd Owens, business manager for Regeneration Services.
The Acid Technology Center:
A key differentiator
What truly makes Veolia’s sulfuric acid business different from other players in this market is the Acid Technology Center (ATC), which is a group of approximately 18 engineers, scientists and technicians who support the sulfur plants and customers exclusively. These include chemical and mechanical engineers who support the sulfuric acid business; chemists, metallurgists and project engineers from varying engineering disciplines; inspectors with two- or four-year degrees and certifications; professionals steeped in mechanical integrity and quality assurance; and a product stewardship group that provides support to customers across all the areas where Veolia’s products are used, including training, inspection and safe handling of sulfur materials.
The ATC was essentially formed in the early stages of sulfuric acid manufacturing in the 1950s, although it has gone through various iterations since that time. The nature of the ATC is to maintain, improve and provide customer support and to bring experts together to solve problems. This nimble group travels to customer sites as needed, supported by “assistance to operations” engineers located at every site. These engineers provide a hands-on, feet-on-the-street perspective, with experienced engineers having specialized skills available to consult on-site as needed.
“The ATC gives us a competitive advantage in terms of customer service,” said Don Janezic, technology manager for Regeneration Services. “Our product stewardship group is involved with the customer from the beginning, throughout the entire term of the contract and then some.” Before Veolia sells acid to a new customer, the product stewardship team conducts a facility audit to ensure the customer site is safe enough and has the proper handling procedures in place to accept the acid. Safe handling could be anything from how the customer unloads railcars to how they get into, operate and clean their tanks. Only then will Veolia sell product to that customer. “If a customer ever has issues with the product, with their facilities, they’ll often call us for advice. We provide an awful lot of service to the customer through our product stewardship group as well as the ATC overall,” said Janezic.
The product stewardship team also works with the carriers like the railway operators and the communities Veolia’s products are produced in and travel through, so everyone is armed with the right information about the hazards of handling sulfuric acid. “We feel a strong obligation to protecting our customers, the environment and the communities where we live and work. Sulfuric acid is an essential but hazardous chemical. But with the right training and preparedness planning for first responders, spills or other incidents can be handled safely for all involved,” said Janezic.
Safety is No. 1
Veolia’s “Goal Zero” safety culture has deep roots and aligns completely with the operating culture of the new sulfur plants, where safety is the most important aspect of its business. “It truly is a core value,” said Lancaster. “Sulfuric acid is very hazardous, so safety has to be our No. 1 priority. And that’s one of the reasons we have a product stewardship team to ensure our customers are operating in a safe environment as well.”
Lancaster said they start meetings with safety topics, and any time a contractor is brought into the plant, they conduct a safety orientation. “We track all of our incidences and, depending on the severity of the incident, we drive it to root cause,” he said. “We follow the OSHA process safety management (PSM) regulations; even though not all of our sites are PSM regulated, we treat them all as if they were PSM regulated. We go above and beyond in terms of safety.”
Veolia also conducts periodic process hazard reviews and hazard review training for new processes or those that have significant change. “When we do those reviews related to process change, our technology team leads the effort. However, operations, maintenance and process control are all part of the review process, so it’s a very collaborative effort,” said Lancaster. “Having people who operate the facility being part of the review sets the tone that they have a lot of control over the safety of our operations and sets the tone of the culture.”
Growth in alkylation
One of the primary drivers for sulfuric acid in the refining segment is the demand for alkylate. As refinery feedstocks have trended toward heavier, more sour crudes, alkylate has emerged as the preferred additive for raising the octane rating of gasoline to meet regulatory requirements for cleaner and more efficient fuel standards. It’s attractive because of its low Reid Vapor Pressure (RVP) rating of 5.5 and its low sulfur content.
Refiners producing alkylate require hydrofluoric acid or sulfuric acid as the catalyst, and 90 percent of the alkylation units built since the 1990s use sulfuric acid. This process creates significant volumes of spent acid the refinery has to manage, normally through on-site sulfuric acid plants. This presents opportunities for Veolia to leverage its existing operations and maintenance business model. “If the refiners are struggling to run some of these plants, we are open to coming in and operating them on their behalf. This allows the refiners to focus on processing oil, not dealing with a corrosive acid plant,” said Pawloski. “We think we can free up their resources so they can focus on their core competencies and outsource the operation of the acid plant to us.”
Couple this with Veolia’s existing KOH business, which services over 30 refineries using HF acid technology to support alkylation, and the company can holistically provide refineries with the regenerated and recycled catalysts they need to produce cleaner gas. “Combining our knowledge of the marketplace, our knowledge of what the refiners need, expect and thirst for in terms of building more alkylate opportunities and solutions, we can support both sulfur acid and HF acid opportunities,” stated Pawloski.
The circular economy and sulfur
Through its sulfur regeneration services, Veolia demonstrates very clearly the circular economy in action.
Lancaster explained, “Refineries use sulfuric acid in their alkylation process. We take the spent sulfuric acid and regenerate it to make fresh acid. That fresh acid is then sent back to the refinery for their use in the alkylation process. It’s a no-waste regeneration loop. In addition, we have the ability to process the acid gas, as opposed to the refinery making molten sulfur. We can take the acid gas directly and turn it into beneficial reuse sulfuric acid.”
Veolia’s sulfur-burning-only plants also play a role in supporting the circular economy. When refineries process H2S in crude to make elemental sulfur, some refiners landfill portions of that sulfur. Veolia buys the elemental sulfur from the refineries and burns it to create sulfuric acid and HVSDs that can then be sold on to companies for further use, creating a beneficial reuse for sulfur that would have otherwise been wasted.
While refineries are a great example, this circular economy solution extends to other industries using acid in chemicals applications. Veolia can also process chemical spent acid from non-refinery customers, or non-alkylation spent, which can be brought in for beneficial reuse. This could come from pharmaceutical companies or makers of microchips.
For example, a maker of microchips needs sulfuric acid to etch or clean the chips. Once the acid is spent, it goes to Veolia for regeneration back into fresh acid for reuse by that same company. Similarly, for pharmaceuticals and health care products, spent acids are generated from the chemical processes where sulfuric acid is used as a catalyst, similar to the way refineries use a catalyst in the alkylation process.
When it comes to the circular economy, it’s evident Veolia is leading the way with processes and technologies to regenerate, recycle and reclaim materials for beneficial reuse, not only for the refining and petrochemical industry but across chemical and manufacturing industries as well. “The acquisition of Chemours’ sulfur products division is just another example of how Veolia is committed to advancing the circular economy in the industrial sector,” said Hopper. “We’re very excited and tremendously proud to be providing this circular economy solution for our industrial customers.”
For more information, visit www.veolianorthamerica.com or call (713) 672-8004.
