Title: Exergy and CO₂ emission analysis of rotary hearth furnace-electric arc furnace routes of steelmaking

Authors: Binay Kumar; Gour Gopal Roy; Prodip Kumar Sen

Addresses: Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India ' Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India ' Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, 721302, India

Abstract: Model-based analysis of exergy and CO₂ emission of an emerging steelmaking process through a rotary hearth furnace-electric arc furnace (RHF-EAF) system has been studied. Exergy indices of two RHF based processes yielding either iron nugget (ITmk3 process) or DRI (FASTMET process), operating with EAF are found to be either superior or comparable to a conventional steelmaking (BF-BOF) process. Net CO₂ emissions through the RHF-EAF processes are found to be comparable to emissions from the BF-BOF process. Considerable improvement in main-product exergy efficiency and CO₂ emission are observed on utilisation of RHF off-gases to in-house power generation.

Keywords: exergy analysis; CO₂ emission; emerging routes of steelmaking; RHF-EAF process; BF-BOF process.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEX.2021.118721

International Journal of Exergy, 2021 Vol.36 No.2/3/4, pp.280 - 297

Received: 24 Aug 2020
Accepted: 15 Mar 2021
Published online: 03 Nov 2021 *

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