Industry's Largest Oxygen Injection System, 1995 Environmental Conference Proceedings

W. Bryan Cartee

RUST Environment & Infrastructure

David Wood

Kimberly-Clark Corporation

Kimberly-Clark’s Coosa Pines, Alabama Pulp and Newsprint Mill has installed what is believed to be the largest river oxygen injection system in the pulp and paper industry to date. The system is a sidestream oxygenation unit with an oxygen-feed capacity of 1815 kg/hr (4,000 lbs/hr), and future expansion capability to 3630 kg/hr (8,000 lbs/hr). The system is designed to increase in-stream dissolved oxygen (D.O.) by 1.0 mg/liter at a river flow of 340 cubic meters per second (12,000 cubic feet per second). The sidestream oxygenation system is located about 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) upstream of the mill’s process wastewater outfall. The intermittent-use oxygenation unit will be used only during periods of low river flow or low upstream D.O., to increase in-stream D.O. to levels required for mill wastewater discharge. The mill’s summer discharge limit for five day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5 ) is dependent upon instantaneous in-stream D.O., through a formula established by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.