Pushing for a Greener World Nuova Solmine

PUSHING FOR A GREENER WORLD

Nuova Solmine, a major producer of sulphuric acid and oleum in Italy and the Mediterranean basin, is enhancing efforts to minimise its carbon footprint. The company has recently entered into a partnership with Enel, ab Italian multi-national manufacturer and distributor of electricity and gas, to capture excess thermal energy and transform it into emissions-free electricity.

With roots going back to the early 1960s, Nuova Solmine, part of the Italian Sol.Mar Group, is a well-established specialist in its sector – its high-purity sulphuric acid has many uses in industrial processes across a variety of sectors, from water purification and pharmaceuticals, to explosives, paper, detergents, fertilisers, the iron and steel industry and many more.

Nuova Solmine’s key market is Italy, but a large part of its output is sold in export markets, particularly in the Mediterranean basin, covering several countries – France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Israel, Turkey and Greece. Further afield, the company has customers in Portugal as well as Central and South America, where sulphuric acid plays a major part in metals processing and fertiliser production.

Nuova Solmine is associated with leading international organisations in its sector. It is a full member of the European Sulphuric Acid Association, a division of the European Chemical Industry Council, bringing together European sulphuric acid producers, as well as the International Fertiliser Industry Association.

It also subscribes to the General Confederation of Italian Industry, the Italian Federation of the Chemical Industry and the Italian Electrical Association. The company also actively participates in the Responsible Care Programme and SET (Emergency Transport Service).

Indispensable for modern living

Sulphuric acid is the most widely used base chemical in the industrial world, a compound that is commonly used as the catalyser in

chemical processes such as alkylation, sulphonation, nitration, and oil refining. It is used in almost all manufacturing processes, particularly the production of pigments, fertilisers and plastics.

Sulphuric acid has many applications both in laboratories and in industries including fertiliser production, mineral treatment, chemical synthesis, oil refining, wastewater treatment as well as in iron and steel production.

It is also used in the food industry, textiles, paper mills, detergents, car battery production, the pharmaceutical industry, in paints and pigments, pesticides, resins and silicone plastics, and in glassworks.

With two manufacturing plants in Scarlino (Grosseto) and Serravalle Scrivia (Alessandria), Nuova Solmine is the largest producer of sulphuric acid in Italy, with around 670,000 tonnes produced every year. The company also produces around 110,000 tonnes of oleum a year; complementary products are demineralized water, steam and electricity.

Modern base

The company’s main operational facility is the Scarlino plant, spread over some 140 hectares, with an annual capacity of approximately 600,000 tonnes. The plant is classified as a ‘basic inorganic chemistry’ industrial process and falls within the category of high-accident risk processing plants as it stocks fuming sulphuric acid – oleum that contains free SO3.

The Scarlino site has a direct pipeline connected to a pier for charging vessels, as well as a railway junction for acid and oleum to be transported by train in special containers to the company’s clients.

The other, smaller production plant is in Serravalle Scrivia and produces approximately 75,000 tonnes of sulphuric acid and oleum per annum through the treatment of waste containing sulphur and by regenerating spent acid.

Scrivia is the only plant in Italy to work on the heat treatment of liquid and solid waste containing sulphur. Spent sulphuric acid is also regenerated here.

In addition to its own production, Nuova Solmine also buys sulphuric acid from both domestic and foreign producers as needed by its customers, giving a total product availability of about 1 million tonnes/year.

New partnership

Aware of the growing focus on sustainability and CO2 reduction, the company has taken active steps to make its production more environmentally friendly. Nuova Solmine has just recently partnered with Enel Group’s innovation arm Enel X on a project to capture excess thermal energy and transform it into emissions-free electricity.

The initiative will see the design and installation of an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) plant in a sulphuric acid production facility, which the companies say will be the first of its kind; an approach that will save up to 75,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions over the 20-year life of the plant.

Electricity production from similar technologies was piloted last year in Canada by Siemens Energy and TC Energy Corporation. The waste heat-to-power facility uses an advanced Rankine cycle and supercritical carbon dioxide as the working fluid to convert waste heat into power.

Luigi Mansi, President of Nuova Solmine, said: “The synergy between Enel X and Nuova Solmine will lead to the implementation of further projects in compliance with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) principles, with the aim of accelerating the sustainability process of the Tuscan company, making it a point of reference for the territory. We have projects in the research phase for the development of electromobility and the production of green hydrogen.” n