Energy-efficient modular cooling tower by NIBA for Avdiivka Coke

On May 31, 2019, Avdiivka Coke Plant (Metinvest Group, Avdiivka, Donetsk Oblast) commissioned a new modular cooling tower by Niba (Turkey). The delivery, installation and commissioning were carried out by Dalgakiran Compressor Ukraine LLC in a timely manner as part of a joint project aimed at improving the efficiency of production processes at Avdiivka Coke.

Avdiivka Coke Plant (AKKhZ) was founded in April 1960 to supply coke raw materials to Ilyich Iron and Steel Works of Mariupol and other Ukrainian steelmaking facilities. Today, Avdiivka Coke is part of Metinvest Group’s Metallurgical Division and is the largest European and Ukrainian producer of coke products for the steel industry. Avdiivka Coke comprises 12 main production shops and 18 auxiliary shops, and annually produces up to 30 types of coke and chemical products, with a focus on blast furnace coke. Coke production is ensured by nine coke oven batteries comprising four coke shops, with a total design capacity of 6.87 million tons of coke with a gross 6% moisture content per year. The company is constantly modernizing its equipment, improving production and technological processes from year to year.

As a result of the successfully implemented project, which took about 9 months to complete, the water cycle in the First Recovery Shop of Avdiivka Coke Plant was closed, as a result of which the technological processes were provided with water of the required volumes and parameters. The energy-efficient cooling tower allows not only to improve production but also to significantly improve the environmental situation in the region: with the commissioning of the equipment, the efficiency of benzene recovery from coke oven gas has almost doubled compared to the previous figures recorded before the installation of the new equipment. Previously, due to the lack of its own cooling tower, the First Recovery Shop was supplied with water using cooling towers designed for the water supply shop, but it was impossible to achieve the required water cooling due to the wear and tear of the units and their overload.

Thanks to the strategic decisions of Yuriy Yeremeyev, leading process engineer of the emergency department, who is the project manager from Avdiivka Coke, and the specialists of Dalgakiran, the plant received an energy-efficient modular NIBA cooling tower made of fiberglass with 5 sections, a cooling capacity of 30 MW, a capacity of 1700 m3/h to cool water from 42 degrees at the inlet to 27 degrees at the outlet, and a total motor power (fan drive) of 22 kW. Thus, today the recovery shop No. 1 of Avdiivka Coke receives from the new cooling tower cooled recycled water with a volume of more than 1800 cubic meters per hour and an optimum temperature of 21 C. The recycled water with these parameters allowed to increase the amount of benzene hydrocarbons recovered from coke oven gas after benzene scrubbers, which significantly reduced emissions from the combustion of clean gas.

Modular cooling towers by Niba (Turkey) are characterized by an advanced technical design and are designed for optimal cooling of the process water environment. The main elements of these units are made of GRP fiberglass, a durable, corrosion-resistant material that is resistant to ultraviolet radiation. Similar cooling towers have been successfully operating for a long time at other Metinvest Group production facilities.

Project manager: Artur Velev