Cabot Corp. (Boston, Mass.; www.cabot-corp.com) has been awarded contracts by two U.S. utilities to supply its Darco Hg family of activated-carbon products to remove mercury from the flue gas of coal-fired power plants in the Midwest. In order to meet stringent federal regulations for mercury emissions in the United States, Cabot expects to provide the utilities with approximately 40 million pounds of activated carbon over the next three years.
The agreements cover multiple Cabot DARCO activated carbon products and have varying terms, with one through 2017. These industry benchmark products have demonstrated to be highly effective in numerous full scale operating facilities, and enable customers to meet stringent mercury emission limits across a variety of fuels and unit configurations.
These agreements will provide a key material to the utilities as they reduce mercury emissions to comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Mercury and Air Toxic Standards (MATS) rule. The MATS regulation requires that coal-fired power plants in the U.S. remove approximately 90 percent of mercury from their emissions by April 2015.
“As the MATS regulation implementation approaches, we are ready to meet the demands of the power generating utility market. These two new contracts clearly demonstrate confidence in the quality and reliability of our products to meet the stringent regulations for mercury removal,” said Bart Kalkstein, vice president and general manager, Global Emission Control Solutions, Cabot Purification Solutions.