Turning CO/CO2-containing industrial process gas into valuable building blocks for the polyurethane industry

Author(s):  
Martin R. Machat ◽  
Jakob Marbach ◽  
Hannah Schumacher ◽  
Suresh Raju ◽  
Markus Lansing ◽  
...  

Provided is a concept of how the carbon content of CO/CO2-containing blast furnace gas (BFG) from steel production could be utilized in a sequence of selective chemical conversion steps to produce high value intermediates for the polymer industry.

2021 ◽  
pp. 0734242X2199190
Author(s):  
Spiros Karamoutsos ◽  
Theofani Tzevelekou ◽  
Angeliki Christogerou ◽  
Eleni Grilla ◽  
Antonios Gypakis ◽  
...  

The biggest challenge for our society, in order to foster the sustainable circular economy, is the efficient recycling of wastes from industrial, commercial, domestic and other streams. The transition to a circular economy is the goal of the European Commission’s Circular Economy Action, which was first launched in 2015. In 2020 the above action plan announced initiatives along the entire life cycle of the product, with the aim to make sustainable products the norm in the EU. Therefore, it is anticipated that the above action will result in an increase in Europe’s economic competitiveness, sustainability, resource efficiency and resource security. Within this context, the suitability of ferroalumina as a raw material in the blast furnace is investigated. Ferroalumina is the product of the high-pressure filter press dewatering process of the Greek red mud generated during the production of alumina by means of the Bayer cycle. Ferroalumina is a low-cost raw material and its possible charging in the blast furnace and/or steelmaking aggregates is a step towards industrial symbiosis, where the wastes, namely by-products, of an industry or an industrial process, become the raw materials for another. In the present work the effect of ferroalumina addition as a raw material was examined by smelting ferroalumina, blast furnace-slag, lime and scrap at 1550°C in a graphite crucible and a constant slag basicity. The increase of the alumina content in the slag improves the desulfurization capacity. Moreover, the silicon exchange between slag and metal was examined. The results indicate that the alkalis’ capacity of the slag increases with the addition of ferroalumina. The analysis of the finally obtained slag suggests that it could be suitable for utilization in slag-cement production.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason Collis ◽  
Till Strunge ◽  
Bernhard Steubing ◽  
Arno Zimmermann ◽  
Reinhard Schomäcker

To combat global warming, industry needs to find ways to reduce its carbon footprint. One way this can be done is by re-use of industrial flue gasses to produce value-added chemicals. Prime example feedstocks for the chemical industry are the three flue gasses produced during conventional steel production: blast furnace gas (BFG), basic oxygen furnace gas (BOFG), and coke oven gas (COG), due to their relatively high CO, CO2, or H2 content, allowing the production of carbon-based chemicals such as methanol or polymers. It is essential to know for decision-makers if using steel mill gas as a feedstock is more economically favorable and offers a lower global warming impact than benchmark CO and H2. Also, crucial information is which of the three steel mill gasses is the most favorable and under what conditions. This study presents a method for the estimation of the economic value and global warming impact of steel mill gasses, depending on the amount of steel mill gas being utilized by the steel production plant for different purposes at a given time and the economic cost and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions required to replace these usages. Furthermore, this paper investigates storage solutions for steel mill gas. Replacement cost per ton of CO is found to be less than the benchmark for both BFG (50–70 €/ton) and BOFG (100–130 €/ton), and replacement cost per ton of H2 (1800–2100 €/ton) is slightly less than the benchmark for COG. Of the three kinds of steel mill gas, blast furnace gas is found to be the most economically favorable while also requiring the least emissions to replace per ton of CO and CO2. The GHG emissions replacement required to use BFG (0.43–0.55 tons-CO2-eq./ton CO) is less than for conventional processes to produce CO and CO2, and therefore BFG, in particular, is a potentially desirable chemical feedstock. The method used by this model could also easily be used to determine the value of flue gasses from other industrial plants.


Author(s):  
Daniel Pugh ◽  
Tim O’Doherty ◽  
Anthony Griffiths ◽  
Philip Bowen ◽  
Andrew Crayford ◽  
...  

Blast Furnace Gas is a poor quality process gas comprising proportions of CO, H2, CO2, and N2, with a low energy density typically in the order of 3 MJ·kg−1. Produced in large quantities as a by-product of blast furnace iron making, it is one of the process gases indigenous to integrated steelworks worldwide. The inherently dynamic nature of furnace operation causes compositional variation and therefore leads to fluctuation in the fuel characteristics, often dissuading engineers from fully utilising the gas in increasingly complex and efficient technologies such as gas turbines. Characterisation studies were undertaken in a new constant volume bomb to determine the sensitivity to change in laminar burning velocity and Markstein length experienced as a result of increasing the volumetric H2 fraction in the range of 1–7%. Experiments were performed by measuring outwardly propagating spherical flame evolution, recorded using a Schlieren flame visualisation technique for a range of equivalence ratios, and processed using nonlinear data analysis. The relative performance of the experimental technique was benchmarked against other works using well-investigated CH4 and yielded results in good agreement with published values. Peak laminar burning velocity was shown to increase by a factor of approximately 3.5 over the tested range, with H2 concentration and equivalence ratio shown to greatly influence the effect of flame stretch. Comparisons of results were also made with values obtained from different reaction mechanisms employed using the PREMIX code developed by Sandia National Laboratories.


Author(s):  
Olena Hryhoriivna Levytska ◽  
Yulia Vladimirovna Voytenko ◽  
Anastasiia Oleksiivna Orishechok

The work presents estimated comparative assessment of emissions release in combustion products during work of high–power steam boilers with the use of traditional fuel – natural gas and alternative fuels – blast–furnace and coke–oven gases generated in the process of technological cycle at iron and steel and coke–chemical enterprises. Calculation algorithm is shown and formulas for assessment of carbon content in exhaust gases are defined, conclusions on ecological efficiency of gaseous fuels are given. The purpose of the work was to evaluate the emissions of harmful substances generated during the combustion of natural, blast furnace and coke oven gases, justification of the calculation of carbon content of a given chemical composition and determine the optimal environmental impact of analogues of natural gas. The comparative estimation of pollutant emissions into atmospheric air during combustion of natural, coke oven and blast furnace gases revealed: – high sulfur dioxide emissions from combustion of blast furnace and coke oven gases due to the presence of sulfur compounds in the composition of these gases; – relatively high emissions of nitrogen compounds for natural and coke oven gases and relatively low emissions for blast furnace gas; – сarbon emissions are high for all types of fuels which have been considered, most carbon dioxide gets into  the air when burning natural gas, least – when burning blast furnace gas; – significantly higher methane emissions are observed during the combustion of natural and coke oven gases, respectively, smaller – for blast–furnace gas combustion; – coke oven and natural gases are characterized by low mercury emissions. Comparative assessment of the calculated values of hazardous substances emissions in the combustion products in the process of combustion of natural, coke–oven and blast–furnace gases shows that even at lower working heat of combustion values the coke–oven and blast–furnace gases can compete with natural gas. For the first time, a comparative characterization of the emissions of harmful substances in the combustion of natural, coke oven and blast furnace gases is presented, and it is shown that the gases used in coke and metallurgical industries, which are used as analogues of natural, are logical to use, but require the installation of treatment systems. The paper defines a formula for calculating the carbon content in natural gas from the Urengoy–Uzhhorod gas pipeline. The provided calculations and the introduction of simplified formulas serve as an example for the calculation of emission factors and emissions in assessing the level of safety of existing equipment and can be used in the development of permit documents of enterprises that carry out emissions of harmful substances to the environment.


Author(s):  
B. S. Soroka ◽  
N. V. Vorobyov

The influence of hydration of the components of combustion (air-oxidizer and – in some cases – fuel) including hydration in the conditions of substitution of natural gas by alternative gas fuels, viz. by coke blast furnace mixture and natural blast furnace mixture – on energy efficiency of the use of different fuels has been determined. Calculations of fuel saving for substitution of natural gas (NG) by wet process gas (blast furnace gas (BFG), coke gas (CG), their mixtures) were performed taking into account real technological parameters (on the example of a specific metallurgical plant). All the calculations were performed within the framework of the author’s methodology on fuel substitution grounded on the 1st and the 2nd laws of thermodynamics. The analysis of possibility for saving or overspending NG is performed in the conditions of preservation of the flow of the used total enthalpy (as the main requirement of the methodology that had been proposed) and of taking into account the corresponding efficiency of fuel use. The calculation of the required heat flow of natural gas combustion depending on the content of wet blast furnace gas in NG + BFG mixtures for the cases of NG substitution by process gases has been carried out. It is established that the presence of moisture in the fuel-oxidation mixture always reduces the efficiency of the combustion chamber or the energy process and the unit. In order to increase the efficiency of a high-temperature furnace (boiler), it is necessary to provide heating of combustion components when utilizing the heat of the outgoing combustion products. It is shown that the efficiency of the fuel-using system can be significantly increased when the potential (excess total enthalpy) of the working fluid (combustion products) is activated. There are additiоnal benefits due to the fact that the existing heat of products of combustion with humid air in a full range of temperatures – from the theoretical combustion temperature to ambient temperature under conditions of equilibrium, including account of the heat of condensation – increases with increasing moisture content of the initial components of combustion, viz. air-oxidizer and/or fuel gas.


2012 ◽  
Vol 511 ◽  
pp. 96-100
Author(s):  
Wei Guo ◽  
Jian Jun Wang ◽  
Wen Gui Gao ◽  
Hua Wang

This paper studied the preparation of chemical raw materials–methanol using blast furnace gas obtained from steel production process. The energy saving and emission reduction effect and the economic benefit brought by the co-hydrogenation process of a mixture of CO and CO2 (CHP) has been compared with those brought by the respective hydrogenation process of CO and CO2 (RHP). The result shows that the CHP brings more economic benefit than the RHP, and the CHP brings more energy saving and emission reduction effect than the RHP.


2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 53-59
Author(s):  
Venkateshkumar R ◽  
Kishor Kumar ◽  
Prakash B ◽  
Rahul R

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