Industrial Ecology in the metallurgy industry

The Harjavalta Industrial Ecosystem

Jyrki Heino1∗ and Tuomo Koskenkari2
University of Oulu, Department of Process and Environmental Engineering
1
Laboratory of process Metallurgy
2
Industrial Environmental Engineering

1 Introduction
It is not difficult to find evidence that human activities are beginning to overrun the resources of
the planet. The industrial processes that have benefited society are also among the sources of the
problems. It is clear that "business as usual" is not an option that industry can maintain for long.
(Jelinski et al.)

Industrial ecology is the multidisciplinary study of industrial and economic systems and their
linkages with fundamental natural systems. Natural ecosystems do not generate waste since the
wastes produced by one organism form the food source for another. Hypothetically, in a
completely efficient economy functioning in harmony with ecosystems, there would be no waste.

Industrial ecosystems refer to situations in which a number of different companies, usually in

close proximity to each other, exchange variety waste outputs. It emphasizes the establishment of
public policies, technologies and managerial systems, which facilitate and promote production in
a more co-operative manner. Technologies and processes that maximize economic and
environmental efficiency are referred to as eco-efficienct (Peck 2000).

The establishment of 'industrial ecosystems,' however, is a relatively new phenomenon. In this

presentation Harjavalta industrial ecopark will be introduced (Heino & Koskenkari 2004).

2 Sustainable development and industrial ecosystems

How can the concept of sustainable development be made operational in an economically
feasible way? Industrial ecology represents precisely one of the paths that could provide real
solutions. Industrial ecology emerges at a time when it is becoming increasingly clear that the
traditional depollution approach (end-of-pipe) is insufficient. Moreover, approaches such as
pollution prevention and cleaner production also have their limits.

Finally, the pollution prevention and cleaner production approaches still think in terms of
preventing and reducing “wastes”, and thus, to a certain extent, share a perspective similar to the
end-of-pipe philosophy. By contrast, in certain cases, the industrial ecology approach would
even consider increasing the production of a particular "waste", in the absence of a cleaner
production viable alternative, if this would allow this "waste" to become a marketable by-
product. The point is, therefore, to integrate both end-of-pipe approaches and prevention
methods into a broader perspective, to which they should be subordinated. (Erkman 1997)

An eco-industrial park or estate is a community of manufacturing and service businesses located

together on a common property. Member businesses seek enhanced environmental, economic,
and social performance through collaboration in managing environmental and resource issues.
By working together, the community of businesses seeks a collective benefit that is greater than
∗
Corresponding author, E-mail address.Jyrki.Heino@oulu.fi
the sum of individual benefits each company would realize by only optimizing its individual
performance (Lowe, et al. 2003). According to Lowe (2003), to be a real eco-industrial park,
development must be more than:

¾ A single by-product exchange or network of exchanges;

¾ A recycling business cluster;
¾ A collection of environmental technology companies;
¾ A collection of companies making “green” products;
¾ An industrial park designed around a single environmental theme; A park with
environmentally friendly infrastructure or construction; or
¾ A mixed-use development (industrial, commercial, and residential).

3 The history of Harjavalta industrial area

Outokumpu copper plant in southern Finland was moved from Imatra to Harjavalta because of
World War II. After the war, Finland suffered from severe energy shortage. This shortage made
the Outokumpu metallurgists and engineers resort to the theory of autogenous smelting, whereby
the heat produced by oxidizing metal concentrates is used to maintain the smelting process, and
turned that into commercial reality. (Paatela 2002)

The first ever copper flash smelter went into operation in Harjavalta, Finland, in 1949. The
technology has since been applied to nickel concentrates. Flash smelting stands as Outokumpu’s
greatest technological achievement. Today, 46 licensees in all five continents evidence its
success. The technology is used to produce about 50 % of the world’s primary copper and 30 %
of the nickel. (Paatela 2002)

Copper and nickel flash smelters form the heart of the Harjavalta industrial ecopark consist of
thirteen different firms. Harjavalta Copper Oy, OMG Harjavalta Nickel Oy, Kemira GrowHow
Oy Harjavalta plants and Kemira Oyj Harjavalta, Porin Lämpövoima Oy, Oy AGA Ab, ABB,
Amica, Engel, SOL, Säkkiväline, Lassila & Tikanoja ja Valtasiirto. Table 1 presents the most
important milestones of the Harjavalta industarial area (Heino & Koskenkari s. 9)

Table 1. The history of Harjavalta industrial area (Heino & Koskenkari).

1944 Outokumpu copper factory is moved from Imatra to Harjavalta.
1945 The start up of the Outokumpu copper factory
1947 The start up of the Kemira sulfuric acid plant
1949 Outokumpu copper flash smelter goes into operation
1959 Outokumpu nickel flash smelter goes into operation
1960 Outokumpu nickel cathodes production starts
1971 The start up of the oxygen plant
1995 The AGA hydrogen plant start-up
1995 The direct Outokumpu nickel process (DON)
2000 OMG Harjavalta Nickel Oy is founded
2000 Porin Lämpövoima Oy starts the energy production
2002 OMG Harjavalta Nickel Oy starts the nickel chemical production
2004 New Boliden buys the copper and nickel smelters
2004 Harjavalta Copper Oy is founded
4 The Harjavalta industrial area
The area of the Harjavalta Industrial Ecopark is almost 300 hectares. In this locale, over 1000
employees are employed. As well as the main firms in the area, there are also over 100
subcontractors functioning. In this section, the five process industry firms, Harjavalta Copper
Oy, OMG Harjavalta Nickel Oy, Kemira, Porin lämpövoimala Oy Harjavalta unit and Oy AGA
Ab Harjavalta unit, are introduced.

4.1 Harjavalta Copper copper and nickel flash smelters

Outokumpu flash smelting is a pyrometallurgical process for smelting copper sulphide
concentrates (Figure 1) (Riekkola-Vanhanen 1999, s. 16 – 17).

Figure 1 Harjavalta copper smelter flow sheet (Riekkola-Vanhanen 1999, s. 17)

Besides the primary metals of copper and iron, the concentrate aslo includes smaller amounts of
different heavy metals (Ni, Zn, Pb, Co, As, Sb, Bi, Ag and Au). In the case of copper, the general
concept of process is: fine dry copper sulphide concentrate and quartz sand as flux are blown
into a hot hearth furnace with oxygen (industrial), oxygen-enriched air. The products are a Cu-
Fe-S matte, SO2 enriched off-gases, and slag. The main reaction is:

2 CuFeS2 + 4O2 ⇔ Cu2S + 2FeO + 3SO2 (1)

The matte is further processed in a Peirce-Smith converter to obtain the metallic copper. The slag
is treated to recover its 2 % copper content. The off-gas contains about 10 - 75 percent by
volume SO2. Heating needed for smelting is obtained from the exothermic reaction of oxidizing
the Fe and S in the feed. The reaction is (Luomala 2002);

[ FeS ] + 23 O2 = ( FeO) + SO2 (2)

The iron forms with quartz fayalite slag:

2 FeO + SiO2 = 2 FeO ⋅ SiO2 (3)

The SO2 is recovered and treated to make either SO2 or H2SO4. The recovery of by-products and
recycling of dust and wastewater have an important effect on the environment, because dusts and
wastewater contain quite a lot of heavy metals.

The Harjavalta Copper DON process eliminates the converting stage altogether and thus greatly
simplifies the nickel process. High-grade matte is produced using only the flash smelting furnace
and electric furnace – without Peirce-Smith converters. The SO2 is recovered and treated in the
same sulphuric acid plant as is the gas from copper smelter. The elimination of converters
reduces the investment, operating and maintenance costs significantly. The nickel flash smelting
flow sheet is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 The nickel flash smelting flow sheet.

4.2 OMG Harjavalta Nickel Oy
The high-grade matte is leached, other metals are separated from the solution, and the remaining
nickel solution is treated to produce both nickel powder and cathode nickel by electro winning.
The nickel production hydrometallurgical process flow sheet is shown in Figure 3 (Pääkkönen &
Mattelmäki 1996)

4.3 Pori Lämpövoima Oy Harjavalta unit

Pori Lämpövoima Oy utilizes the heat of the exothermic copper and nickel flash smelting
process. The energy is captured by the waste heat boilers as is shown in Figures 1 and 2. The
reaction heats formed in the sulphuric acid plant through the reactions 4 and 5 is also utilized by
Porin Lämpövoima Oy (Heino 2002):

SO2 + 0,5 O2 ⇔ SO3 ∆H° = -99,0 kJ/mol (4)

SO3(g) + H2O(l) ⇔ H2SO4(l) ∆H° = -132,5 kJ/mol (5)

Figure 3 The nickel production hydrometallurgical process flow sheet (Pääkkönen &
Mattelmäki 1996).

4.4 Oy AGA Ab Harjavalta Unit

The Oy Aga Ab Harjavalta unit manufactures oxygen, nitrogen and argon by air distillation. The
hydrogen is made from industrial gasoline. The oxygen, nitrogen, argon and hydrogen are used
in the manufacturing of copper and nickel at Harjavalt Copper and OMG Harjavalta Nickel.
Parts of the products are used by the other plants outside of industrial area.
4.5 Kemira Harjavalta unit
The main product of the Kemira Harjavalta unit is aluminium sulfate made from sulfuric acid
and aluminium hydrate (Al(OH)3). The agency of the sulfuric acid and liquid sulfur dioxide is
also part of Kemira’s business. As well, Kemira manufactures urea phosphate, and different
granulated and glasshouse fertilizers. (Heino & Koskenkari 2004, s. 25)

5 The Harjavalta industrial area as an industrial ecosystem

This section is based on the enquiry which was directed to the five firms presented in section 4,
and to city of Harjavalta. (Heino & Koskenkari 2004)

The most important advantages of the integration to the firms were environmental and recycling
advantages, image factors and marketing, and logistic advantages. The network and the better
co-operation has also been a very positive development factor. As well, safety actions improved
because of the co-operation (Heino & Koskenkari 2004, s. 25)

For the city of Harjavalta, the most important advantages of the industrial area are employment,
international dimension, intellectual capital and image because of the famous firms located there.
(Heino & Koskenkari 2004, s. 25)

The material and energy change between the firms is shown in Figure 4 (Heino & Koskenkari
2004, s. 31). Extra energy of the processes is utilized as electricity, high temperature steam or
heating energy by the process plants or by the city of Harjavalta, which utilizes the energy in
district heating.

When considering the Harjavalta industrial area as an industrial ecosystem, we take into
consideration the ecosystem principles roundput, diversity, locality and gradual change, which
are summarized in Table 2 (Korhonen 2001). Three of the four principles of Korhonen are
fullfilled in the Harjavalta Industrial Ecosystem. There are also plans and research work going on
to improve friendliness to the environment. (The grounds for this argumentation are better
expressed in the oral part of this presentation).

Table 2 Ecosystem principles in industrial ecosystems (Korhonen 2001).

Ecosystem Industrial system
Roundput Roundput
Recycling of matter Recycling of mater
Cascading energy Cascading energy
Diversity Diversity
Biodiversity Diversity in actors, interdependency and
cooperation
Diversity in species and organism Diversity in industrial in put, output
Diversity and independency in co-operation
Locality Locality
Utilizing local resources Utilizing local resources, wastes
Respecting local natural limiting factors Respecting local natural limiting factors
Local independency, co-operation Co-operation between local actors
Gradual change Gradual change
Evolution using solar energy Using waste material and energy, renewable
Evolution through reproduction resources
Gradual development of the system diversity
Cyclical time, seasonal time
Slow time rates in the development of system diversity
Figure 4 The material and energy change between the firms in Harjavalta industrial area (Heino
& Koskenkari 2004, s. 31).
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