Hartford Steel Plans New Zinc Oxide Plant in Mississippi

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Researched by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Incorporated; Houston, Texas). Hartford Steel (Hartford, Connecticut) plans to construct a new zinc oxide plant in Senatobia, Mississippi in an industrial park on Venture Boulevard. The new commercial scale plant will produce 18,000 tons per year of zinc oxide, with the future potential of expanding its capacity to 36,000 tons per year.

When preliminary development is complete in November 2002, Hartford Steel will select an engineering and construction firm to provide detailed engineering and construction services for the new facility. Construction is slated to begin in March 2003 with an online date of early 2004.

Hartford Steel was founded 4 years ago to develop an environmentally friendly process to control the growing electric arc furnace (EAF) dust problem. EAF, fine coal, and sludge/scale are the three primary raw materials used in a pyrometallurgical and hydrometallurgical process to remove the insoluble materials by digesting the crude zinc oxide powder in a chemical solution (NH4C1) that is passed through a specially designed filter. The insolubles are then removed with the end product being crude zinc oxide.