An interview with Antonio Zocche by Ajoy K Das for miningweekly.com
KOLKATA (miningweekly.com) – To tap into the rapidly growing Indian ferrous and non-ferrous metals processing industry and stricter air quality monitoring norms, Milan-headquartered SME Ekoplant has set up shop in the country, floating a 100% wholly-owned subsidiary Eko Air Filtration India Private Limited (EAFIPL).
“For Indian industries using combustible processes and gaseous emissions, finding the right technology that enables them to meet legally stipulated air pollution norms within acceptable limits has been a headache for long,” SME Ekoplant sales director Antonio Zocche tells Mining Weekly Online.
“Since the Indian economy is growing very fast there is a rising concern to minimise the gap in research and development (R&D) and we will try to enhance technical, engineering and advanced R&D to offer industrial dust and gas treatment solutions to Indian ferrous and non-ferrous manufacturing processes through our new Indian subsidiary,” Zocche says.
He adds that EAFIPL will offer Indian industries expertise in lower pressure bag filters with casings of filtering elements made of textile or fabric felt with the correct pitch for the exact ascension velocity.
The innovative products of the company’s proprietary technology ensure that dust remains outside the filters, and that compressed air is injected at low or high pressure in opposite directions forcing the dust to fall into hoppers, eliminating all risks to ambient air quality, so critical in meeting environmental regulations across processing industries.
The low pressure, 2.5 bar, air injection technology developed by SME Ekoplant to clean the dust bags ensures higher longevity of the system and hence lower costs over the lifetime of the product, Zocche says.
The company has already bagged initial orders for supplies of equipment to iron-ore miner and integrated steel producer, JSW Limited’s operations at Dolvi in Maharashtra in the west and Vijayanagar in southern India.