Reusing Wastewater as Process Water... Yeongpung Seokpo Smelter's 'Zero Liquid Discharge System' Marks Fifth Year

There is a growing movement in industrial settings to reduce the discharge of process wastewater and expand water reuse. The Yeongpung Seokpo Smelter has been operating a Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) system, which treats all wastewater generated during the smelting process and reuses it as process water, for the fifth consecutive year.

Aerial view of Yeongpoong Seokpo Smelter wastewater zero liquid discharge (ZLD) system. Yeongpoong

According to Yeongpung on August 12, the Seokpo Smelter in Bonghwa-gun, North Gyeongsang Province, was the first smelter in the world to introduce the ZLD system in May 2021. The facility, in which approximately KRW 47.5 billion was invested, is capable of treating up to 4,000 cubic meters of wastewater per day.

ZLD is a circulatory water treatment system that does not discharge process wastewater from the smelting process to the outside but instead re-treats it for reuse as process water. The Seokpo Smelter has implemented an 'atmospheric evaporation concentration' method, in which purified process wastewater is boiled at temperatures above 100°C, the resulting steam is collected as water, and then recycled as process water. Waste heat steam generated during the smelting process is used as a heat source, thereby reducing the energy consumption burden.

Currently, an average of 2,000 to 2,500 cubic meters of water used in the process is treated by ZLD each day and fully reused. As a result, the company explained that it has reduced the annual intake of river water by approximately 880,000 cubic meters. Yeongpung has also completed patent registration for the related technologies. Recently, there have been increasing visits from officials from local governments and industrial complexes who are considering the introduction of Zero Liquid Discharge systems.

In addition to building the ZLD system, Yeongpung continues to invest in environmental improvements at the Seokpo Smelter. After establishing the 'Environmental Improvement Innovation Plan' in 2019, the company had invested a cumulative total of about KRW 540 billion in environmental areas—including water quality, air, and soil—by last year.

According to the company, water quality measurements at locations 2 to 4 downstream of the smelter on May 14 showed that key heavy metals, such as cadmium, lead, arsenic, mercury, and copper, were all below the quantitative limit. Being below the quantitative limit means that concentrations are lower than the minimum detectable levels of the measurement equipment. The company also reported that the endangered species otter has been continuously spotted in the nearby Nakdong River in recent days.

A Yeongpung official stated, "The Seokpo Smelter is dedicated to not only the competitiveness of the smelting industry but also to continuously developing and investing in technologies for environmental and water resource protection. Based on the environmental improvement achievements, including the ZLD system, we plan to contribute to the eco-friendly transition of industrial sites and to the expansion of resource circulation."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.