Pictured above: (l-r) Kevin Tranter, Managing Director, Cooper Coated Coil holding first piece of production off the oxidiser, with Geoff Richards, Team Leader, Cooper Coated Coil

Wolverhampton based Cooper Coated Coil (CCC) has used a £500,000 loan from the Carbon Trust to reduce energy usage at their factory.

CCC, based on the Planetary Industrial Estate, has installed a Waste Heat Recovery Plant (WHR) at a cost of £500,000. This replaces an existing oxidiser, which used a significant proportion of the company's total gas consumption. 

The WHR plant will cut down the company's use of natural gas by 50 per cent whilst ensuring that clean air enters the local atmosphere, meeting stringent local authority limits.

The WHR plant will form an integral part of the manufacturing process at Cooper Coated Coil. The company applies specialist coatings onto aluminium and steel coils for use in the manufacture of housewares, automotives and white goods or any product utilising metal that requires a protective or decorative coating. 

Kevin Tranter is Managing Director at CCC. "CCC's product can be seen everywhere" says Kevin. "Our main product, accounting for the major part of our sales at present, is non-stick material for domestic bakeware and appliances. Our coated metals are used in cup cake tins, baking trays, turkey roasters and oven trays. It's a case of not everyone knows your name, but everyone knows your product."

"Our old oxidiser used gas for most of the working week whilst it was running", says Kevin. The new WHR plant is designed to destroy the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that are generated when we cure the wet paint that we apply to metal coils. As the paint is dried by exposure to hot air, the solvent in the paint evaporates. The hot air, containing the VOCs, is then taken into the WHR plant.

The VOCs are then thermally destroyed by being treated in a hot air chamber which operates at a temperature of 800C. However, the really clever part of the WHR plant is that the energy contained in the air that has been cleaned, is then used to keep the WHR plant at its operating temperature, before being released into the local atmosphere - thus avoiding the need to use natural gas. 

"Our gas consumption at present is around 210,000 kWh per week just for taking the VOCs away and producing clean air. The new plant should reduce this to 43,000 kWh, so we'll be using 80 per cent less gas in this process.

"We initially asked CR Plus of Rugeley to survey our energy usage to see how we could operate more carbon efficiently. The survey was funded by the Carbon Trust. CR Plus produced a report that identified the use of a more efficient oxidiser that would save us money but more importantly burn less fuel, while still producing clean air. We then applied for funding to cover the cost of the new WHR plant using the CR Plus report as a basis. I'm delighted to say that The Carbon Trust gave us an interest free loan over three years. We also put up ten per cent of the cost ourselves."

The WHR plant was supplied by Donau Carbon of Italy, who supply oxidisation and solvent recovery plants internationally. 

"We believe that this plant is the only one of its kind in the world in use by our sector, says Kevin. "We wanted to do the right thing. We are located next to the site of Bowman's Harbour and this area was at one time synonymous with air and ground pollution. The metal waste generated in the business is recycled and our steel is purchased mainly from the UK. We have 60 employees over a three-shift system which has recently been introduced to increase output. Our aim is that the factory will operate a six day week across 24 hours to cope with increased demand."