Preserving natural resources

Preserving natural resources

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Préserver les ressources naturelles
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Preserving natural resources: reducing consumption and waste of natural resources, cleaning and purifying the water, the air or the rare-earth elements, etc.

In 2021, the John Cockerill’s teams have worked, among others, on these emblematic projects:

Purifying water and recovering waste: John Cockerill, a player in the circular economy

John Cockerill’s innovative technologies in water, air and waste treatment are helping to make today’s world even more sustainable tomorrow. Because the preservation of natural resources is a major issue, John Cockerill has designed equipment in 2021 to enable energy companies and local authorities to treat their effluents, and to even recycle them in an industrial process.

Stripping to treat the waste material of a leader in natural gas

Stripping to treat the waste material of a leader in natural gas

As a major player in natural gas in Europe,Teréga is investing in order to purify its industrial effluents, in accordance with evolving standards. It is to John Cockerill that Teréga has mandated the installation of a liquid and gaseous waste treatment station in the south-west of France.

The objective of Teréga: control the impact of its activities on the environment. On the one hand by treating liquid waste which is produced by the two stages of dehydrating natural gas stored in the two underground reservoirs of the client’s compression platform, and on the otherby eliminating a maximum of the organic charge, in other words all of the Volatile Organic Components and the odors from these waste materials. A good example of our combined expertise in water and air at the service of players in the energy transition.

Deux stations de traitement pour améliorer les eaux de la filière nucléaire

Two treatment stations to improve the water from the nuclear industry

Framatome produces a third of the world’s zirconium (Zr), which is an essential element for the nuclear industry. Demand for Zr continues to grow, and also impacts the aerospace, medical and electronics fields. This production involves the treatment of several hundred thousand cubic meters of liquid effluent per year. This is where John Cockerill comes in: in 2021, Framatome called on our expertise to design, build and install two treatment stations, and to thereby improve the quality of process water at its Jarrie site (France). The treatment unit is complemented by a new pre-treatment station, smoothing basins and two physio-chemical filtration lines. This equipment allows Framatome to improve the quality of its water.

L’innovation BeFlow® pour traiter plus efficacement nos eaux municipales usées

The BeFlow® innovation for treating our municipal wastewater more efficiently

Innovation to better treat the waste water from municipalities. This is the case with BeFlow®, a technology that has proved itself in Namur (Belgium) in 2021:“This continuous flow process requires no chemical reaction and can be applied to liquid effluents produced by both municipal and industrial installations”,points out Olivier, Process Expert Engineer. “What distinguishes BeFlow® from traditional installations is its compactness, which makes it energy-efficient, as well as its capacity absorb output peaks. The results are conclusive, as the pilot installation already effectively purifies the wastewater of several hundred inhabitants around the Namur wastewater treatment plant”.

A first MEDIX® order for the elimination of pharmaceutical micro-pollutants


Our micro-pollutant treatment solution MEDIX® made the headlines in 2021. It is featured in a report by the European NGO Health Care Without Harm, which looked at the pharmaceutical load of the wastewater discharged into the environment by hospitals. Further recognition of the effectiveness of MEDIX® in treating the threat that these micro-pollutants represent for the environment and public health. To end the year on a high note, MEDIX® was the subject of a first order.
Une première commande MEDIX® pour éliminer les micropolluants pharmaceutiques
Cométha to recover organic waste from our wastewater

Cométha to recover organic waste from our wastewater

The whole point of the Cométha project is the development of a brand new process for the co-methanation of organic residues from household waste and sludge from wastewater treatment plants. The construction of a pilot installation began in the Paris region in 2021. “This demonstrator should validate the expected performance of this project. Cométha aims to maximize biogas production, to recover as many by-products as possible, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, and to minimize the final non-recoverable residue,” explains Olivier, CTO of our Water activities. If the demonstrator proves its worth, it’s a safe bet that other customers will start looking at this innovation…
Valoriser toujours plus la biomasse résiduelle en Malaisie

Produce hydrogen from recycled waste

The German energy company RWE is building a pilot plant in Niederaussem to test the production of raw material pellets obtained from waste. The objective of this project is to optimize a key step in the process of transforming household waste into hydrogen. To achieve this, RWE is partnering with John Cockerill to equip its facility (a roasting plant) with the MHF/100/0™ technology. In this Multi Hearth Furnace by The NESA Solution® of John Cockerill, pelletized waste is roasted under a reducing atmosphere, in particular to improve its grindability. These roasted pellets are then pulverized and gasified to produce a synthesis gas that is rich in hydrogen and carbon monoxide. 50% of the recycled H2 is considered as green, while the other 50% forms part of a circular economy context, where waste is re-used as a raw material for the chemical industry.