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Acciaierie d'Italia and Eni Rewind: technologies for the circular economy

12/07/2021 

 

Decontamination is not an end itself, rather a mean, through which we give new life to industrial tradition areas, in a perfect example of circularity. Intervention on water tables and soils that we are designing with Acciaierie d’Italia will contribute to the completion of the itinerary of environmental rehabilitation that the Taranto plant has undertaken since several years”.

Francesco Misuraca, Director of Environmental Technical & Site Activities of Eni Rewind, tells in this video-interview the many dimensions of the development of the cooperation between two major Italian companies.

We provide to Acciaierie d’Italia services of environmental design as part of the renovation process underway at the Taranto site. It is a three-phased partnership”, Misuraca explains, “the first of which concerning the scouting of the environmental situation, data collection and inspection of soils and water tables. The second one is devoted to the analysis of the remaining and potential risks, both for people that for the environment itself. Once these evaluations are made, i twill be possible to intervene on the risk factors and plan targeted environmental interventions”.

Eni Rewind can offer to the Taranto plant a long-dated experience in decontamination operations and interventions on contaminated water tables and soils: “Eni Rewind was born in the Oil & Gas sector, where we developed technologies and methodologies perfectly appliable also to the steel universe, where we believe they can add important added value to the rehabilitation journey of the Taranto plant”.

It is indeed a journey with a high degree of innovation, in which digitalization plays a central role: “thanks to a 3D modelling of the subsoil conditions is the first and fundamental starting point of any activity of this type”, Misuraca points out, “the process of analysis starts from the examination of the soil conformation, of its components and the permeability of the different layers, down to the water table. It’s a TAC find of on the subsoil: it allows us to understand which type of contamination is in there, what concentration and mobility. From here, we can begin the design of the interventions, with the goal of giving these areas new life”.

The process aims at contributing to the creation of a circular economy also for what is concerning the consumption of water and soil: “the circularity is a very important issue and very current too, that we applied in several of our interventions. Think, for example, to the water table treatment that, once decontaminated, we can give back to the production cycle, reducing so the water consumption from other sources. In Ravenna, we treated the soil of a former industrial area by building on-site a decontamination facility, that we will use in the future for the hydrocarbon decontamination in other industrial sites. There is a further example of circular economy that comes from a dumping ground in Porto Torres, where we choose not to move the contaminated material but to treat it on-site, in order to avoid further waste footprint during the transport. In this site we are able to decontamine’80% of material, reducing to 20% the amount to be stored in a nearby safe dump site, in which we installed a photovoltaic energy production plant”, tells Misuraca.

The experiences gained in the Oil & Gas sector are applying also to the sites of Acciaierie d’Italia, for the completion of the decontamination of water tables and soils and, in the following years, can be the basis for further developments of the cooperation: “we are already very proud of what we are doing for Acciaierie d'Italia in Taranto, but we can contribute more competences that can help the plant to achieve even more challenging environmental goals. We can do that by strengthening the environment monitoring and offering technologies for the treatment of water, waste, and soil, that could become protection units inside the area: such as facilities for recovering and valorization synergically managed by Eni Rewind and Acciaierie d’Italia, under the mark of circularity”.

 

 

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