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Question to those who are better educated: I seem to remember from school several decades ago that one of the problems of iron production is reducing the carbon
by janosdebugs 3y ago
Question to those who are better educated: I seem to remember from school several decades ago that one of the problems of iron production is reducing the carbon content of iron, which takes a tremendous amount of energy. Would that not negatively impact the CO2 balance of iron as a fuel?
- datadrivenangel 3y agoCO2 Emissions from Steel production are a big issue, because a significant portion of industry, use Basic Oxygen Furnaces, where oxygen is blown into molten iron to burn out the carbon into CO2. Burning Iron for energy would be silly for general energy production because it takes energy to make iron. It's not a primary energy source! It can be used in specialist applications, like Thermite, where it allows for more energetic reactions than typical hydrocarbons.
- janosdebugs 3y agoThank you for the answer. What would be a more CO2-efficient way to produce steel?
- PaulHoule 3y agoSome processes use electrolysis or direct reduction by hydrogen https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/green-steel-insight-brief.pdf https://rmi.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/green-steel-insig... A conventional blast furnace reduces steel with carbon momoxide, you can also modify a blast furnace so it recycles the carbon https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/steel-blast-furnace-emissions-reduction-research-university-birmingham-uk/ https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/steel-blast-furnace-emis... https://www.jfe-steel.co.jp/en/research/report/028/pdf/028-03.pdf https://www.jfe-steel.co.jp/en/research/report/028/pdf/028-0...
- datadrivenangel 3y agoMost of the serious solutions involving capturing the CO/CO2 gases coming out of the process. Decent article: https://www.freethink.com/energy/decarbonizing-steel https://www.freethink.com/energy/decarbonizing-steel