R & D

Haycarb places vital importance in product quality when serving our customer needs. We have a strong in house team of R&D personnel consisting of over 20 chemists and chemical engineers, committed to ensure highest product quality. Therefore, all our product offerings are backed by a R&D team available on site at each of our manufacturing locations in Sri Lanka and overseas.

Our R&D laboratories are equipped with up-to-date, state of the art equipment to carry out standard and special testing of carbon. Our highly qualified chemists are specially trained to conduct all standard analyses and testing required to ensure optimal quality of our range of products, as well as all special application-related testing requirements for our customers with specialized carbon needs.

Some of the equipment and special testing capabilities of our labs include:

1. Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer, used to determine:
   1. Metal constituents in carbon (Na, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Ni, Cr, Al, As, Sb, Cu, Mo, Si, Ag, etc)
   2. Gold adsorption capacity
   3. Gold adsorption rate
   4. NSF & Prop-65 competency of carbon
2. Surface Area Analyzer, to determine:
   1. Surface area (Langmuir, BET, etc)
   2. Pore volume
   3. Pore size
3. ONH Analyzer
4. Sulfur Analyzer
5. Ion Selective Electrode meter to determine Chloride, Fluoride contents
6. Nitrate and Nitrite content of activated carbon
7. Turbidity meter
8. Sulfur analyzer
9. Laser Diffraction Particle Size Analyzers
10. Particle size determination by Sonic shifter
11. Ignition Temperature of Carbon

Additionally, our in house R&D team provides a range of services to our customers, not limited to:

• Carbon testing
• Carbon recommendation
• System analysis and consultation
• Performance analysis of carbons

Regeneration

As part of our regeneration services suite, we transport spent activated carbon filters from our customers’ plants to our regeneration facility. The spent carbon is transported hydraulically to our tanks in a closed loop system to prevent any contamination of the surrounding area by the pollutants adsorbed onto the carbon. We then thermally regenerate the carbon to its original performance levels. We also service the filter components and eliminate all contaminants within the filter at our site before refilling it with the regenerated carbon as well as some virgin carbon for return to the customer’s plant.

Haycarb guarantees that the regenerated carbon meets the performance levels of the original carbon supplied.

Haycarb also provides technical advice, systems design, engineering support and installation of regeneration systems onsite.

Classic regeneration of spent activated carbon is performed off-site in a furnace, rotary kiln or multiple hearth furnaces. The thermal regeneration process is similar to that used to manufacture the original activated carbon and is especially used where large tonnages of granular activated carbon are involved. Thermal regeneration can regenerate spent gas phase granular activated carbons where the adsorbed impurities have a high boiling point or are very strongly adsorbed, and for spent liquid phase activated carbons used in water treatment.

Some activated carbon particles will break during handling and the regeneration process burns off some of the activated carbon to produce slightly smaller particles on average. This loss will be made up with fresh input of virgin material.

The number of times GACs can be regenerated and the periods between regeneration vary significantly depending on the type of carbon and on its application. In solvent recovery, GAC can be used for up to 5,000 cycles.

Environmental Solutions

Puritas (Pvt) Ltd

Puritas (Pvt) Ltd has been in the forefront of providing water and wastewater solutions with over 250 treatment plants in Sri Lanka and the Republic of Maldives, treating over 20 million litres of water and wastewater per day. With over 19 years of experience in the purification industry, Puritas (Pvt) Ltd, a fully owned subsidiary of Haycarb engages in providing a wide range of products and services to cater diversified needs in the environmental engineering sphere.

• Environmental engineering solutions and turnkey systems for treating influent and effluent water including sewage for hotels, commercial buildings and industries
• Through an exclusive agreement with Veolia Water, the global leader in water services, water and wastewater services are provided for public authorities (National Holiday Resort - Passikudah)
• Providing consultancy services for Sustainable Environmental Management
• Manufacturing and Marketing of Activated Carbon based consumer goods such as Face Masks (Oxypura) and Odour removing Products (Mr. Fresh and Bin Fresh)
• Offering high quality water purification chemicals through GE Water, USA
• Offering tailor made CSR packages to entities in need by meeting requirements of less privileged communities

Lakdiyatha (Pvt) Ltd

‘Lakdiyatha’ is established to undertake Build Operate Transfer (BOT) infrastructure needs on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) platform. It is a result of exclusive collaboration with Veolia Water, world’s leading operator in water services, formed as a joint venture between Veolia Water India and Puritas (Pvt.) Ltd

Lakdiyatha Pasikudah Project

Acclaimed for implementing first ever BOT project on PPP platform in the water & wastewater sector in Sri Lanka, as the Rs 185 million investment. Lakdiyatha Passikudah’ facility is a centralized treatment plant to the National Holiday Resort in Passikudah comprising of 930 rooms in fourteen hotels.

Treatment plant consists of approximately 12 Kilometer network connecting 14 hotels and other common areas within the Holiday Resort to the centralized treatment plant to treat and recycle the wastewater back to the hotels for irrigation, ensuring a pollution free Passikudah bay. Lakdiyatha designed and built the plant and will operate it for 20 years.

Puritas Sath Diyawara Project

Puritas (Pvt) Ltd commissioned its first Reverse Osmosis (RO) plant in D10 Maithreepura, Padaviya under their CSR project, ‘Puritas Sath Diyawara’ on the 15th of August 2014. Funded, designed and constructed by the Haycarb group, under the guidance of the National Water Supply and Drainage Board, this plant will provide purified potable water for nearly 1,500 inhabitants in the area. This will directly contribute to the efforts to mitigate the spread of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) in the North Central province and uplift the socio-economic conditions of the people of that region.

Studies indicate that an approximately 400,000 people are currently affected by CKD, of which men between the ages of 15 – 60 years are the most vulnerable. Providing purified water is found to be the key solution not only to eliminate CKD but to reverse the effects of those affected by it.

The technology used is reverse osmosis (RO) membrane filtration along with customized pre- and post-treatment technologies depending on the quality parameters of the raw water source.

Operational Solutions

Systems Design and Development

We provide engineering support, technical evaluations and advice on existing systems, as well as develop and provide systems design and installation for industries utilizing activated carbon as a solution. Haycarb employees an in-house team of over 25 dedicated engineers responsible for production design as well as systems design for our customers. Our engineers have set up green field activated carbon factories overseas and are engaged in continuous improvement of our manufacturing processes.

In addition, Haycarb also provides technical advice, systems design, engineering support and installation of regeneration systems onsite.  

Stock Holding Services

Haycarb’s total solution incorporates logistic management services. For our customers it is no longer necessary to hold extra carbon stock at their premises. Haycarb can hold your extra carbon stocks in its warehouses around the globe to be dispatched to your premises at short notice.

Stock holding for customers is one of the unique services Haycarb provide as a part of our extended services to the valued customers. If activated carbon is critical to your processes and you want to have extra stocks ready at close proximity, Haycarb is ready to take that burden off you.

Logistical Services

We also provide total logistical solutions for movement of equipment and products through our sister company Hayleys Advantis, a multi-model transport provider. Additionally, we can air freight large quantities to any location as a special delivery feature through group represented couriers within a period of seven working days from dispatch.

Operator Training

Haycarb's wide range of technical and field support services are targeted at making sure your operators are trained on the activated carbon systems supplied, and to ensure optimal performance of systems and processes.

Haycarb Green Carbon

At Haycarb, we have a mandate to nurture and sustain a healthier environment by preventing pollution in our production processes and all areas of application of our products. In over 40 years of operations, we’ve emphasized a ‘Green’ way of life: all the way from generating our electrical requirement from waste gases to developing the world’s first line of ‘green’ carbon products and reducing our carbon footprint by an impressive 137% over the last 10 years.

Haycarb’s patented green charcoaling process is used to develop its line of NeutroCarb Premium Activated Carbons featuring the smallest carbon footprint of any activated carbon currently available in the market. NeutroCarb is a global industry first.

Haycarb “Green” Standard:

Green Charcoaling Process:

The coconut shells are dried using waste heat from the process and charcoaled in mechanical reactors where there is no release of pollutant gasses into the atmosphere.

The pollutants (green house and acidic gasses) released during the manufacture of charcoal are combusted in a boiler to generate steam that is in turn converted to electricity via a steam turbine.  

The electricity generated is utilized to operate the plant with the excess supplied to the national grid.

Benefits

Prevents the release of 890 tons per annum of Methane gas, otherwise released during traditional charcoaling, to the atmosphere, equivalent to 18,700 tons of carbon dioxide per annum.

The substitution of fossil fuel based power generation by this renewable process prevents a further 32,000 tons per annum of carbon dioxide (that would not have been carbon-neutral) from being released to the atmosphere.

The prevention of greenhouse gas emissions is approximately eight tons for every ton of activated carbon produced.

Recognition

• Approved and registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), authorizing the company to trade certified carbon credits under the Kyoto Protocol.
• Recipient of the prestigious National Science and Technology award for Eco-Friendly Material/Processes in 2007.

Green Activation Process

Once charcoal is received from our patented ‘Green’ charcoaling process, it is converted to the NeutroCarb range of activated carbon through our eco-friendly activation and finishing processes.

• Waste gas as a fossil fuel substitute: Our boilers are not fired on traditional fossil fuel but on waste gases produced by our kilns. We have further fine-tuned our waste heat recovery systems so that over 40% of the electricity required is generated via steam turbines at our factory locations. The cycle is completed as the low pressure steam released from the turbines is sent back to our kilns for the activation process – each step systematically designed to prevent the release of pollutants to the atmosphere.
• Renewable biomass as a fossil fuel substitute: Our wood-fired gasifiers utilize only renewable sources of fuel wood to generate the required energy to fire boilers, chambers and dryers, ensuring that upon the completion of the process, only carbon-neutral gases are released. The natural environment cycle is thus sustained when renewable sources of wood are used (i.e. fuel crops) as the Carbon Dioxide is absorbed by these sustainable plantations and forest ecosystems from which it was released

Waste Management & Conservation

All activities in the production process are geared towards reducing the carbon footprint of our activated carbon.

• Recycling: We re-use material which, traditionally, is released to the environment as waste. At Haycarb, both carbon and charcoal dust, captured by our dust control plants, are utilized to produce different grades of carbon, significantly lowering the impact on the environment caused by production waste. We also have specially developed processes to optimize the use of fine materials that are the off-grades of production, ensuring minimal wastage and superior emissions control.
• Regeneration: Regeneration of spent carbons reduces waste and eliminates the need for unnecessary incineration or landfill disposal. Our unique regeneration process is highly efficient, with no hazardous chemicals or gasses released to the environment. All effluents are released only after conversion to a benign state.
• Conservation: For those of our processes still utilizing fossil fuel, we have process modifications in place (such as running kilns with the burner off) in order to ensure that fossil fuel usage is minimized in the production process