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Indian Metals and Ferro Alloys (IMFA) is set to show a new way for productive disposal of fly ash in India, a development that could help power producers in better management of the commodity.
IMFA, India’s leading fully integrated producer of value-added chrome, has commenced trial production of low-density aggregate (LDA). This product is made from fly ash generated by its captive power plants that can be a substitute for stone-chips used by the construction industry to add mass to concrete.
Although fly ash-based LDA is not used by the Indian construction industry, it is extensively used as a substitute for natural aggregates (stone chips) for construction in Europe and West Asia.
“We will be launching commercial production soon. We are confident of marketing this new product in India, as the construction and power industries have already started showing interest in the product,” JK Mishra, Chief Operating Officer, IMFA told BusinessLine .
It has set up a ₹75-crore plant to produce about 12,000 tonnes of LDA a month, using about 1.2 lakh tonnes of fly ash every year generated by its captive power units, which together have an installed capacity of 258 MW.
“With our technology, the cost of LDA made out of fly ash works out to ₹1,000 a tonne. Also, it has other advantages over stone chips for construction, including its light weight. While one cubic metre of stone chips would weigh between 1.7 and 2 tonnes, the same volume of LDA will weigh below 0.8 tonnes,” Mishra said.
Power producers, grappling with the problem of fly ash disposal, are now exploring the option of converting fly ash into LDA, especially as the demand for aggregates is set to surge on the back of increased construction activity.
ExpansionIMFA, which has a ferro-chrome manufacturing facility in Odisha with a capacity of 2.75 lakh tonnes, is looking to add one more furnace of 60,000-tonne capacity in the next two to three years. .
The capacity ramp-up will come on the back of expansion of its chrome ore mining capacity from the current five lakh tonnes to about 6.5 lakh tonnes over the same period.
Mishra said while the new furnace would require an investment of about ₹200 crore, the ore mining expansion would require another ₹100 crore.
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