Techno-economic assessment and comparison of CO2 capture technologies for industrial processes: Preliminary results for the iron and steel sector

Abstract This paper presents the methodology and the preliminary results of a techno-economic assessment of CCS implementation on the iron and steel sector. The results show that for the short-mid term, a CO 2 avoidance cost of less than 50 € /tonne at a CO 2 avoidance rate of around 50% are possible by converting the conventional blast furnace (BF) to Top Gas Recycling Blast Furnace (TGRBF). However, large additional power consumption for CO 2 removal and oxygen generation, and reduction in BF gas export, makes the economic performance of the technology very sensitive to energy prices. Add-on CO 2 capture for conventional BF may achieve similar costs (40–50 € /t CO 2 avoided), but the CO 2 avoidance rate will be only about 15% of the specific CO 2 emissions. For the long term future, although there are large uncertainties, advanced CO 2 capture technologies do not seem to have significant economic advantages over conventional technologies. The results also indicate that in a carbon-constrained society, when considering new plants, smelting reduction technologies such as the COREX process, may become a strong competitor to conventional blast furnace based steel making process when equipped with CO 2 capture. Although conventional iron and steel making using BF is expected to dominate the market in the long term, strong need for drastic CO 2 emissions reduction may drive the sector towards large scale implementation of advanced smelting reduction technologies.

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