TAR PITS ZERRE AND TERPE
Task: Retreating and recycling of tar-containing residues
Time frame: January 2000 to January 2005
Substances: 440,000 tons of tar residues, soil and construction debris
Zerre and Terpe tar pits
Lobbe was given the job of collecting and recycling the ARGE VTL ("Verwertung Teerdeponien Lausitz") tar-content residues at the Terpe waste dump and the Zerre storage area. Work began in January 2000 and should be completed by the year 2005.
Information
The residues were composed of a wide variety of tar-oil solids, water, and pasty substances. Lobbe has the start-to-finish task: project planning, substance processing, material recycling, and disposal. This includes the design, construction of and start-up of a facility for accepting and processing tar-oil fluids. An existent floating dredger, already at the Zerre site, is being used to take out 200 tons of residues each day. This is being pumped under 100-bar pressure to the storage area.
In the fall of the year 2000, Lobbe will complete the facility that will palletise tar-oil residues for recycling eventually. Initially, the facility will produce synthetic gas that will be converted to high quality methanol.
The total project will involve completion of the following
- Recovery of 120,000 tons of liquid and pasty tar-oil substances from the Zerre storage site using a dredger, as well as 20,000 tons of tar-oil pasty solids from the Terpe dump site; heating and recycling the recovered tar-oil products.
- Recovery of 228,000 tons of solid and pasty tar-oil substances, as well as 69,000 tons of coal dross and mud, using conventional excavating methods.
- Pelletizing the recovered solid and pasty tar-oil substances, and recycling the newly won sub-stances with a solid bed pressurized gasifier.
- Purification of approximately 1 million m³ of ground water, as well as the disposal of 40,000 m³ of heavily contaminated surface water.
Temporarily storing and eventually refilling approximately 300,000 m³ of soil, construction debris, coal dross and slag using mobile earth moving technology, followed up with backfilling, and certification of compaction.
The processes involved at the current facilities, including the construction of the new storage and loading options, should substantially improve the quality of the products. Operation of the pelletizing facility in the second half of the year 2000 will greatly facilitate the recycling capabili-ties of the undertaking. Both sites are being cleaned and improved simultaneously to produce a newly-won product.
