Jamestown – Envirowales Recycling Plant – Fabrication Industrial Kettles 4m Diameter

A Giant Kettle

Jamestown Manufacturing Ltd. recently fabricated two 3.5 metre internal diameter industrial kettles for use in lead recycling at the Envirowales Recycling Plant in Ebbw Vale, South Wales.

Fabricating a Lead Refining Kettles

The kettles were made by Jamestown to the customer’s precise specifications, using rolled steel plate and parallel flange channels.

A Potentially Difficult Size and Shape

The size, weight, and shape of the kettles could have presented difficulties in handling, but these were avoided by tack welding temporary lugs to the exterior, which were used whilst it was being lifted into position. The lugs were then removed before the kettles was blasted and painted.

Smelting Lead

The recycling plant uses steel kettles, such as the one fabricated by Jamestown, to heat 75 tonnes of molten lead, using high efficiency natural gas burners. This process, involving high temperatures and large quantities of toxic materials, obviously requires the highest safety standards and attention to detail. Jamestown’s reputation for manufacturing with precision and quality ensures that their products will maintain these standards.

Recycling Lead Batteries

Envirowales is one of Europe’s leading recycling plants for lead batteries. Opened in 2006 at a cost of over £20 million, this modern factory processes around 70,000 tonnes of car batteries a year. Envirowales aims to achieve an efficiency rate of over 95 per cent in recovering materials (including polypropylene and sodium sulphate as well as lead) from used car and lorry batteries.

Conserving the Earth’s Resources

Much of the world’s lead production (in the region of 85 per cent) is used in the manufacture of lead-acid batteries, and currently over 50 per cent of this lead comes from recycling plants such as Envirowales’s in Ebbw Vale. Lead can be recycled indefinitely, which helps in reducing carbon emissions and contributing to sustainable development. The industrial kettles fabricated by Jamestown will be playing an important part in conserving the world’s lead resources.

A Pleasant Experience

The kettles were fabricated and delivered within the planned one-month timescale. Andrew Green of Envirowales commented favourably on the Jamestown contribution to the project:

Dealing with Jamestown was a pleasant experience. They were able manufacture the items exactly as detailed and work within our required timeframe. We will be working with them again in the future.
Andrew Green-Envirowales

Andrew Green-Envirowales