CO(2) Abatement in the Steel Industry through Carbon Recycle and Electrification by Means of Advanced Polymer Membranes

The potential of advanced polymer or hybrid polymer membranes to reduce CO(2) 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 CO(2) avoidance of 9%. CO(2) 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 CO(2) abatement potential of the studied concept is highly dependent on the CO(2) conversion in the plasma torch. If CO(2) conversion in the plasma torch could be increased from 84.4% to 95.0%, the overall CO(2) 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 CO(2) 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.