The ERMS SR Synrutile Process
The ERMS SR process is the world’s most environmentally sustainable synrutile process. It is unique in delivering two valuable products with no solid or liquid wastes. The process is carbon-capture capable and generates less CO2 per tonne of product than other ilmenite upgrading processes.

The ERMS SR process is the world’s most versatile and cost-effective ilmenite upgrading process.

The ERMS SR process:

• can use any ilmenite from any deposit around the world;
• can use any fuel (solid, liquid or gas);
• can use treated waste water where available;
• produces no liquid waste and no solid waste (no landfill);
• emits the least CO2 per dollar of revenue compared with other upgrading processes;
• is carbon-capture capable; the very pure captured CO2 is saleable to other industries; and
• uses waste heat to generate electricity so is self-sufficient for power.

Recycling Steel Industry Waste
The EARS section of the Newcastle Demonstration Plant was used during the second half of 2008 to trial recycling spent pickle liquor (acidic iron chloride solutions) from the steel industry. The Plant is being refurbished to process spent pickle liquor, mill scale and iron oxide rich furnace dusts to produce fresh hydrochloric acid and iron pellets for steel making. This will demonstrate Austpac’s EARS and iron reduction processes on a commercial scale, ready for world wide application in the steel industry. This is the Newcastle Iron Recovery Plant project.

Dust from blast furnaces and electric arc furnaces, iron oxide scale from steel rolling mills and spent pickle liquor from steel coating are waste products that create environmental problems for many steel producers around the world. Austpac’s unique EARS regeneration process can economically recover both the chloride and the iron from pickle liquors, as well as recover iron from the mill scale and the iron dusts.

The EARS/Iron Reduction process is expected to be accepted as the environmental solution for a significant waste problem facing the world’s steel industry.