Joint venture fights mercury pollution

With regulators tightening pollution standards, MeadWestvaco Corp.’s locally based chemical business is partnering with another company to make a wood-based product that strains mercury from coal-fired power plants.

The Richmond, Va.-based packaging giant said it has agreed to team up with Albemarle Corp., a top producer of a chemical called bromine that binds with the toxin.

Together, they plan to produce and market a black powder called “activated carbon” to electric utility companies looking for ways to scrub potentially dangerous pollutants from the smoke their power plants create.

“The market really just developed last year as the first states came online,” said Bob Beckler, president of North Charleston-based MeadWestvaco Specialty Chemicals.

Federal regulators set national emission standards, but some states in the Northeast and Midwest have enacted their own new legislation that puts stricter pollution limits in place. South Carolina hasn’t passed such a law.

MeadWestvaco began manufacturing the black powder to serve the emerging market earlier this year in Kentucky and Virginia, near mills that provide sawdust. The dust is then processed to produce tiny particles that are porous like a sponge.

Albemarle provides bromine, which is mixed with the wood particles. The Baton Rouge, La.-based company will also market the activated carbon under the alliance. MeadWestvaco will handle the manufacturing.

The powder binds with and filters out mercury produced by burning coal before the mercury can be released.

Mercury is a potent toxin linked to brain damage and other health problems. A recent study from the U.S. Geological Survey called the chemical one of the most serious contaminants threatening the nation’s waters.

Other manufacturers have made similar powders throughout the years from other products, such as a type of coal called lignite. Beckler called the wood-based offering a “variation on an old process.”

Eyeing current trends, he said, growing demand for the product could lead MeadWestvaco to double production of its processed sawdust.

“The alliance will serve to support the expansion of this process,” Beckler said.

The chemical business is one of two key MeadWestvaco Corp. subsidiaries that are still headquartered in the Charleston area. The other is the land and real estate development arm.

MeadWestvaco Corp. sold its North Charleston paper mill and local lumber operations last year.