PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
In France, the production of cooling liquids for the car market represents approximately 65 000 tons/year. It is used to supply the various cooling circuits of cars, lorries, buses, machines of construction sites, etc. In addition, 6 to 9 000 tons of cooling liquids are used for more specific applications: ice-cold water production circuits (cold circuits in industry, air conditioning circuits, cold banks) or heater circuits (central heating installations, hot air pumps, solar cells etc.). The cooling liquid is made up of 55 % of water and 45 % of inhibited glycols. These products are considered dangerous and are marked with a "Saint André's cross" on their packaging. In France, less than 5 000 tons are collected and destroyed by burn-off evaporation, this process has a high energy consumption and the waste comprises 80 % of polluted water. The cost of such a treatment is 152.45 euros per ton. This high cost is an inhibiting factor to increase the quantity that remains uncollected (30,000 tons). This waste generally ends up in an uncontrolled way in the sewerage works, rivers and the soil.
OBJECTIVES
Glycols are harmful pollutants, therefore stopping discharges from these substances is in the interests of environmental protection. They are also by-products of petroleum, therefore recycling them is also interesting from an economic point of view. The objective of the project was threefold: to inform and convince the users not to discharge any more Used Cooling Liquids (UCL) into the environment, to set up collection points and to develop the industrial process of recycling. The industrial plant to be developed for the recycling process was to be designed for a treatment capacity of 6,000 tons of UCL per year. In the first year, 1,500 tons would be treated, 2,500 tons in the second year and 3,000 in the third and last year. It was planned to achieve a full loading capacity of 6,000 tons after 5 years of operation. The treatment process was intended to be clean, energy efficient, with a treatment cost of about 100€/T.
RESULTS
In order to re-use 30 % of the glycols recovered in the Used Cooling Liquids (UCL), the beneficiary, PCMB, developed a clean and energy saving process which allowed degraded products to be separated from the water and glycols. The water is re-used in the plant heat exchanger and the glycols are sold to the manufacturers of new cooling liquids. The remaining waste (3%) is sent to a destruction centre. To enable this process a plant was set up and obtained special permission from the local authorities to operate as a waste reprocessing centre. The following work was carried out: - providing site monitoring and intruder protection, - clearing wasteland and rehabilitating green areas, - complying with safety regulations and removing obsolete equipment, - restoring storage tanks, - installing containment systems in case of accidents, - building roads and infrastructure, - installing rainwater collection systems. To develop an efficient system, the beneficiary repaired and adapted a refinery plant including the distillation columns, filtration units and absorption units. On the basis of preliminary pilot trials, the development of the industrial process was set up, however the distillation process was only perfected after successive tests and by changing the technical and physical parameters of the columns. After 3 years of sustained efforts in developing this recycling process, the final objectives of the project will be fulfilled in 2004, when more than 4 000 tonnes of UCL will be recycled. An important environmental result and complementary activity of the project was the awareness of the environmental problem raised among stakeholders during the project. Indeed, in 1997, the producers of UCL were insensitive to the environmental aspects of this type of waste. As it could be easily mixed with water, the tendency was to deposit it in soil. The beneficiary therefore undertook an awareness campaign with automobile constructors, scrap yards, industrialists, local authorities and institutions to inform them of the existence of the recycling channel made possible through the project. At the same time, the beneficiary approached waste transport firms to inform them about the nature of this type of hazardous industrial waste and to encourage them to install pumping and storage equipment for this product. Both the awareness and fine tuning of the treatment process bore its fruits in 2002 when more than 6 000 tonnes were collected in France. Nevertheless, despite this major capital investment, PCMB only received 800 tonnes because the UCL were deviated to other disposal routes, which benefited from operating subsidies, thus falsifying the economic realities of reprocessing. However, the beneficiary in turn succeeded in being officially recognized in January 2002 and was therefore on a level to compete with other disposal routes. As the process is non-polluting and energy efficient, PCMB now benefits from large quantities of UCL. The process is now well underway, the price of 106,71€/ton paid by the producers of UCL for treatment of the substance, combined with the quality of the recycled glycols provides a balanced life cycle for cooling liquids. In addition, the flexible and efficient technique which has been developed could be exported to other countries of the European Union where identical reprocessing plants could be installed. This project can be considered to be a success story because the beneficiary's perseverance has enhanced awareness of the UCL pollution problem among national authorities. A follow-up survey, carried out in 2005 by the LIFE external monitoring team, showed the objective is to collect 4,000 tons more in the next five years. The lowering of the treatment costs and the improvement of the quality of the recycled glycols will also provide a better balanced life-cycle for cooling liquids. In addition, this newly developed flexible and efficient technique can be exported to other European countries.
