CO2 Abatement in the Steel Industry through Carbon Recycle and Electrification by Means of Advanced Polymer Membranes

Abstract

The potential of advanced polymer or hybrid polymer membranes to reduce CO2 emissions in steel production was evaluated. For this, a conceptual process design and assessment was performed for a process that is a combination of carbon recycling and electrification of the steel making process. The results indicate a CO2 avoidance of 9%. CO2 emissions were reduced by factor 1.78 when using renewable electricity according to the proposed scheme compared to feeding this renewable electricity to the electrical grid. The CO2 abatement potential of the studied concept is highly dependent on the CO2 conversion in the plasma torch. If CO2 conversion in the plasma torch could be increased from 84.4% to 95.0%, the overall CO2 avoidance could be further increased to 16.5%, which is comparable to the values reported for the top gas recycling blast furnace. In this case, the CO2 emissions reduction achieved when using renewable electricity in the proposed scheme compared to using the same electricity in the electrical grid increases a factor from 1.78 to 3.27.