FRANKLIN, La.—Cabot Corp.'s Franklin operations are a whole lot greener now that the company has completed its air emissions control project.
Cabot invested about $85 million to upgrade its facilities and reduce the daily NOx and S02 emissions by as much as 20 tons. Additionally, waste heat from the plant is recovered and, without creating additional emissions, is used to generate about 50 megawatts of power.
"I am immensely proud of our project team, plant staff and contractors for completing this significant project on time despite numerous technical challenges, several named hurricanes, an unprecedented deep freeze event as well as the global COVID-19 pandemic," Bart Kalkstein, Cabot's president of the Reinforcement Materials Segment and president of the Americas Region, said in a statement.
Last year, Cabot said that the facility upgrades would reduce NOx emissions by 90 percent and SO2 emissions by 95 percent through the use of wet gas scrubbing. At that time, Cabot said emissions savings would cut NOx and SO2 by nearly 900 and 6,500 metric tons per year, respectively.
This marks the second upgrade of this kind for Cabot, which recently was awarded by EcoVadis and Newsweek for its sustainability efforts.
In 2017, Cabot performed similar emissions control upgrades at its plant in Pampa, Texas. There, the company said it reduced NOx emissions by 67 percent, eliminating 1,500 tons of emissions through three years.
"Our proven knowledge and experience implementing best-in-class emission control technologies at other sites in our network, combined with our team's ability to quickly adapt to the changing environment enabled us to complete this project on schedule, ensuring cleaner air for the citizens of Louisiana and continuity of reliable, high quality supply to our valued customers throughout North America," Kalkstein said. "We thank all those involved for their hard work, persistence, and flexibility to complete the job safely and on schedule during an extremely challenging time."
