PPCB discusses setting up of HCl recovery facility

Ludhiana: A meeting between senior officials of Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) and Ludhiana Spent Acid Treatment Cluster Association was held on Friday to discuss the issue of setting up a hydrochloric acid (HCl) recovery facility in the city.
PPCB’s chief environmental engineer Sandeep Bahl said, “There are several acid pickling units in the periphery of the city but as of now, there is no facility for recovery of HCl from the spent acid generated in these units. The spent acid is treated at a common effluent treatment facility located at Phase 8, Focal Point. A meeting was convened today to address the concerns of the pickling units and to recover a product of commercial value from the waste spent acid.”
Bahl added, “During the meeting, the Ludhiana Spent Acid Treatment Cluster Association gave a presentation on a common facility centre-integrated project for spent hydrochloric acid treatment with state of art technology. The recovered HCl will be sold to the member industries for reuse in their process. This plant will help decrease pollution by allowing reuse of the recovered acid.”
Industrialist Badish Jindal said, “This will be the first of its kind technology in the state for treatment of spent hydrochloric acid. The PPCB officers have assured us full facilitation as the regulatory authority and have asked all business associations to explore all available technologies and get the same certified from an institute of repute.”
During the meeting, PPCB’s senior environmental engineers R K Ratra and Paramjeet Singh, industrialists Pankaj Sharma, Upkar Singh Ahuja, D S Chawla, Narinder Bhamra, and representatives of large acid consuming units such as Hero Steels Ltd, Avon Ispat & Power Ltd and Aarti Steel International Ltd, were also present.