BHUBANESWAR: In what appears to be technological break, Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAL), the Indian arm of London based Vedanta Resources Ltd, is recovering import-substitute Vanadium from effluent red-mud from its alumina refinery project at Lajigarh minting gold from its mud-to-money (MTM) programme.
The company has so far been successful in producing 17-18% grade Vanadium, a soft, silvery gray, ductile transition metal used for producing specialty steel alloys such as high speed tool steels. The market price of per ton of 100% grade Vanadium is pegged at around Rs five lakh, while VAL has been selling at Rs on lakh per ton Vanadium, according to VAL refinery project president and chief operating officer (COO), Dr Mukesh KumarVandium is recovered as Vanadium Penta Oxide from Alumina Refinery liquor and sold to various Ferro Alloys manufacturers who mainly meet their requirement by import.
"The red-mud disposed in the red-mud stacking area contains 35-45% iron, 10-12% titanium, 10-14% alumina, 7-8% silica and less than one per cent vanadium. By using an internally developed technology, we are separating vanadium," Dr Kumar, told "The ET" on Monday.
He further added, "This is part of our zero waste project. We were able to recover about 100 tons of vanadium last month and we plan to further scale it up. So far we have sold 300 tons of 17-18% grade vanadium to the State Pollution Control Board (SPCB) authorised companies at an average price Rs one lakh per ton."A large number of companies like Jaiswal Oxides and Pigments, Star Alloys Corporation and others have evinced interest to buy the product, informed the COO.
On the recent allegation that its alumina refinery plant in Orissa is posing a major threat to crops in Srikakulam district, Dr Kumar made it clear that the union ministry of environment and forest has already made it clear that there is no discharge from Red Mud Pond in Lanjigarh. "A high level technical committee from the Central Pollution Control Board along with representatives of the State pollution Control Board visited the site on 25 April 2011 and 17 May 2011 and collected samples from all the surrounding water bodies and from the Red Mud Pond to check for the presence of toxic substances.
Their report categorically says that there has been no discharge from the red mud pond or water pond or any outlet of the industry to Bamsadhara River".
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