BOSTON, US: Cabot Corporation has been awarded contracts by two US utilities to supply its DARCO Hg family of activated carbon products to remove mercury from the flue gas of coal-fired power plants in the Midwest. In order to meet stringent federal regulations for mercury emissions in the United States, Cabot expects to provide the utilities with approximately 40 million pounds of activated carbon over the next three years.
The agreements cover multiple Cabot DARCO activated carbon products and have varying terms, with one through 2017. These industry benchmark products have demonstrated to be highly effective in numerous full scale operating facilities, and enable customers to meet stringent mercury emission limits across a variety of fuels and unit configurations.
These agreements will provide a key material to the utilities as they reduce mercury emissions to comply with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS) rule. The MATS regulation requires that coal-fired power plants in the US remove approximately 90 per cent of mercury from their emissions by April 2015.
Compliance with MATS is expected to boost demand for activated carbon by electric utilities. Based on the demonstrated success of Cabot’s current customer base along with numerous Department of Energy and EPA-sponsored tests and customer trials, Cabot’s DARCO Hg family of products has proven to be highly effective in achieving mercury removal levels compliant with MATS.
“As the MATS regulation implementation approaches, we are ready to meet the demands of the power generating utility market. These two new contracts clearly demonstrate confidence in the quality and reliability of our products to meet the stringent regulations for mercury removal. Over the years, we have demonstrated our leadership in this application and have proven our ability to reliably supply high-quality products,” said Bart Kalkstein, Vice President and General Manager, Global Emission Control Solutions, Cabot Purification Solutions.
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