£6.7m creates UK's biggest carbon plant

Its 1.7-hectare site at Bean Road, Foxyards, Tipton has been in operation since January 4.

The Mayor of Dudley, Councillor Steve Waltho, visited the plant this month to carry out the official opening.

The former Graham Carbons site has been upgraded and extended over the last two-and-a-half years since it was bought from Severn Trent. The furnace has been increased in size and has had an extra four levelsadded and its capacity has been raised from 5,800 tonnes a year to 10,000.

Chemviron Carbon's European vice president Reinier Keijzer said that the plan t had been established in 1996 as part of Severn Trent to reactivate all of its carbon, but in 2011 it had decided it was not a core business and had stopped operation.

"We have made significant changes and improvements to bring it to the latest u]industry standard.

"It is now a facility that is economically viable and that can serve drinking water customers across the UK.

"This is now the largest activated carbon recycling by reactivation facility in the UK and the second largest in Europe to our Belgian facility that has a capacity of 40,000 tonnes," he explained.

The Chemviron Carbon UK fleet of 14 tankers – able to transport 27 tonnes of carbon each – brings used carbon in and delivers the treated and newly clean carbon back to customers, mainly for use in treating drinking water. Major customers include Severn Trent and Thames Water.

The site is in operation 24/7 with tankers having carbon pumped out in the new unloading bay to bunkers.

The spent carbon is then delivered by conveyer belt to the top of the multiple hearth furnace which operates at 900C. In the past it was delivered in water and the new system has dramatically reduced water usage and energy consumption.

The plant is operated by a team of 15 under UK production manager Nick Coles, who is also responsible for Chemvirons's speciality activated carbon manufacturing plant in Ashton-in-Makerfield, near Manchester.

Calgon Carbon chief operating officer Bob O'Brien said the corporation had started out in the 1940s making activated carbon for military gas masks in World War Two and had since found other ways to use the product and had expanded to Europe, Asia and South America.

He said the new Tipton facility met Calgon's motto of 'Pure Water. Clean Air. Better World' and was providing a service for clients in environmentally challenging circumstances.

"I have a lot of confidence that this will be a successful operation," he added.

Councillor Waltho said: "We absolutely welcome major investment in local manufacturing industry."

The Smethwick-born councillor, who works for Solvay at its former Albright & Wilson plant in Oldbury, said his father had been a sheer metal worker who did a lot of work for Bean Industries, which once owned the site where Chemviron Carbon now was, so it was a pleasure to see the fresh investment.

"This is probably the biggest major industrial investment we have seen in the borough this year," he added.

Tony Bray, area director of the Department for Business, Innovation & Skills, said it was a fantastic facility that had created important jobs in the environmental sector.

"We are seeing a resurgence of manufacturing industry jobs, particularly in the West Midlands," he added.