The new Horsehead Corporation, an eco-friendly incarnation of its predecessor, Horsehead Industries and its predecessor, New Jersey Zinc Corporation, is in the business of recycling zinc-and is the largest zinc producer in the United States.
It recycles the zinc-rich dust from steel mini-mills across the country that use electric arc furnaces (EAF) to reclaim iron and steel from junked automobiles. Automotive steel is often dipped in molten zinc to provide corrosion protection in a process called galvanizing.
The EAF process is so hot that the zinc coating vaporizes into a fine dust. The dust, which contains about 20 percent zinc plus iron, calcium, silicon and heavy metals is collected by a filter. Were it not for Horsehead Corporation, this material would go to a hazardous landfill and the demand for zinc would be filled by the mining of new ore-an energy-intensive process that can deplete existing reserves to the detriment of future generations.
Horsehead Corporation annually receives 500,000 tons of EAF dust at its four recycling plants in Beaumont, TX, Calumet, IL, Rockwood, TN, and Palmerton, PA. It processes the EAF dust into two products-a zinc oxide and an iron rich material.
The zinc oxide, which ranges from 50-57 percent zinc, is further processed at the Palmerton facility in calcining kilns to produce zinc calcine and metal chloride.
The Zinc Calcine contains about 65 percent zinc and is sent to Horsehead Corporation's central zinc smelting and refining facility in Monaca, Pennsylvania, outside of Pittsburgh, where it is transformed into zinc metal and zinc oxide.
The tire and rubber industry is a primary market for zinc oxide where it is used as a trigger for the vulcanizing process. The iron rich material (IRM) is sold to cement manufacturers as an iron source and to asphalt producers as an aggregate.
The metal chloride is shipped to Horsehead's Bartlesville OK facility, where residual zinc, plus lead and copper, are separated. The zinc is returned to Monaca for the production of zinc metal and zinc oxide, while the lead and copper are sold to lead and copper producers.
At Horsehead Corporation's Palmerton facility, the zinc dust is concentrated in a two-step process-both steps using rotary kilns. These furnaces are slightly inclined and slowly rotate about its diameter to heat, mix and move the dust as the zinc is concentrated.
Each of its four rotary kiln furnaces is approximately 12-foot diameter and 160-feet long. Inside the brick-lined steel tubes, temperatures approach 1,200 degrees centigrade.
The first step, called Waelzing-German for "Rolling"-combines the EAF dust with a source of carbon, used to purify the zinc through a reduction process. Traditionally anthracite coal was the carbon source. While anthracite still provides about ten percent of the carbon, more popular carbon sources are petroleum coke and metallurgical coke.
The Waelz Kiln concentrates the zinc to between 50 and 57 percent. This becomes the feed to the second stage, the Calcining Kiln. Calcining is a process that heats materials to high temperatures but does not cause melting. The resulting product is a 65 percent zinc-rich material, Zinc Calcine.
The Palmerton facility was always a processing plant, it never included mining operations. The New Jersey Zinc Company located operations here and created the town of Palmerton around 1898 to process the zinc ore from its several regional mines.
Palmerton offered access to large quantities of anthracite that were required for both processing and heating, the Lehigh Canal and a railroad network for shipping, and the Lehigh Canal as a source of water for power production. The recently removed Palmerton Dam was installed to retain water for this purpose.
The New Jersey Zinc Company started in 1848 as the Newark Zinc Company. After opening mines in Franklin and Sterling, it changed its name to the New Jersey Zinc Company, using the 1786 Colony of New Jersey insignia, the image of a Chess Knight or Horsehead, as its corporate symbol. Over the years, they had 20-30 mines in the US.
During the Second World War, NJZ employed 3,700 workers producing zinc for batteries and galvanizing. Most operations were by hand and were later automated. The company thrived as the largest producer of zinc in the United States.
In 1966, New Jersey Zinc Company became a subsidiary of Gulf & Western. Around 1979, the low price of zinc and the growing awareness of deforestation on the Blue Mountain, caused the smelter to cease operations. What remained was the Waelz Oxide process and some lesser operations.
The Natural Resources Division of Paramount Communications bought Gulf & Western. Viacom bought Paramount.
In 1981, a management-led team formed Horsehead Industries and purchased the zinc assets of the former New Jersey Zinc Company. The New Jersey Zinc Company remained a subsidiary of Horsehead Industries until 1987, when Horsehead Industries merged it with St. Joe Minerals to form Zinc Corporation of America.
In the early 2000s, the worldwide price of zinc set record low prices leading to Horsehead Industries filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002. The company was allowed to continue operating while it worked its way out of the bankruptcy.
Horsehead Corporation, an affiliate of Sun Capital Partners, purchased the company's zinc production assets in 2003 for $73.6 million. In Palmerton, it principally purchased the operating portions of the East Plant-it did not purchase the West Plant or the surrounding property.
Horsehead Corporation began operations on Dec. 23, 2003. Although it has a similar name, it is a new company, completely and legally separate from Horsehead Industries-although it uses the facilities and equipment of the previous company and has hired many of its employees. Horsehead Corporation employs 165 at it Palmerton Plant and over 1,000 at all its plants.
"Our intent is to continue operating," said Ali Alavi - a vice president at Horsehead Corporation "We have been practicing the principles of sustainable development and product stewardship, perhaps before those terms were even coined."
