Simcoa Silicon Metal Company of Australia

Client introduction

Simcoa is one of the largest and most modern operating silicon smelters in the world.

It is the only silicon producing smelter in Australia, located at Kemerton, 160 km south of Perth, Western Australia.

They are a long established West Australian company, producing silicon, microsilica, char fines, aggregates and dross.

Silica is used in a vast number of everyday products like aluminium, silicones, Silicon chips, solar energy, and optical glass.

The Challenge

Simcoa operate a high energy, high heat smelter.

There is a lot a slag and dust created in the process of creating silica products.

The company sought expressions of interest, hoping to find a strong and reliable sweeper. It would be required to handle their tough operating conditions, sweep up spills from loaders and mobile plant around the site.

Simcoa contacted ASC’s Sweeper Specialist, Ross Sheehan, to see what he could recommend.

The Company’s two existing sweepers were non-operational for close to four months.

The Solution:

Simcoa sent two of their senior staff to the ASC warehouse in Perth, to see the ASC M8 sweeper in real life. They were keen to see the M8’s engineering layout whilst inspecting the ASC facility at the same time.

Having passed that test, Simcoa asked Ross Sheehan for an onsite demonstration.

They wanted to test the machine’s true capacity, in what they claimed was Australia’s toughest application to sweep.

They were sceptical due to the huge amount of dust and debris the site created every hour of the day. No other sweeper they had to date could cope with the conditions in this smelter successfully.

The Result

The machine demonstrated flawlessly. 100% pick up of debris and zero dust emission, while operating on both undulated and smooth floors.

While no photography is allowed on site, Ross managed to obtain the pictures attached.

Convinced by the machine and ASC infrastructure support, Simcoa placed an order for the ASC M8 sweeper.

Ross Sheehan then organised to install the new M8 sweeper.