As air pollution control systems age, the question arises of whether to replace or modernize them. For a particularly well-thought-out solution, one of Europe’s leading beverage can manufacturers turned to plant engineering company Dürr. Ball Beverage Packaging has extended the air pollution control capacity of its plant in Gelsenkirchen, Germany, by relocating an existing system from another site where it was no longer required and scaling it up with just a few new components.
A move is always challenging, and even more so when the item in question is a complete regenerative thermal oxidizer (RTO) air pollution control system with three towers rated for 75,000 m³/h of exhaust air. 60 metric tons of technology had to be transported from the old site to the new one in more than 20 truckloads, with a police escort required in some cases due to an excess width of up to 3.5 meters. However, it was all worth it: by reusing the existing components, Ball Beverage Packaging ended up with a modern five-tower system for a total of 110,000 m³/h of exhaust air. The costs are much lower than for an equivalent new system. And on top of this, the beverage can manufacturer still has a capacity buffer for the future.