Capture and reduction of carbon emissions to maximise circularity in the steelmaking process

在向更循环的经济转型时，钢铁是一种关键材料，因为它在保持其特性的同时具有固有的可回收性。然而，钢铁工业贡献了全球人为二氧化碳排放量的7-8%。钢铁行业面临的问题是在减少排放的同时增加供应以满足额外需求。关键是要解决这个矛盾，以防止二氧化碳排放“离岸”，这并不能真正解决问题。通过一系列研究，碳捕获、利用和封存（CCUS）已被证明在技术上是可行的。通过这些研究，排放的二氧化碳被捕获、加工并用作生产另一种材料的原料，例如原醇和航空燃料。诸如变压吸收和吸附增强水气转换等技术已被证明在捕获和分离该过程中的气体排放方面是有效的，并且在通过生物和催化过程从清洁的CO2流中生产有用的化学品方面取得了一些成功。这项研究将捕获工艺气体，并开发生产“清洁”氢气和二氧化碳的工艺。然后，二氧化碳将被转化为新的产物（例如甲烷）。生产甲烷的基本原理是在直接还原铁（DRI）生产中用作还原剂，这是减少原铁和炼钢排放的潜在解决方案的先驱。

Steel is a critical material when transitioning to a more circular economy due to its inherent recyclability whilst maintaining its properties. However, the steel industry contributes 7-8% of the global anthropogenic CO2 emissions. The problem the steel industry faces is reducing emissions whilst increasing supply to meet additional demand. It is key that this paradox is solved to prevent the CO2 emissions being "off-shored" which does not actually solve the problem. Carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) has been shown to be technically feasible via a series of studies whereby CO2 emitted is captured processed and utilised as a feedstock to produce another material, examples being primary alcohols and aviation fuels.Technologies such as pressure swing absorption and sorption enhanced water gas shift have been shown to be effective in capturing and separating the gaseous emissions from the process and there have been some successes in producing useful chemicals from the clean CO2 stream via biological and catalytic processes.This study will capture process gases and develop processes to yield a 'clean' hydrogen and CO2. The CO2 will then be valorised into new products (e.g. methane). The rationale for production of methane is to utilise as a reductant in Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) production which is a forerunner in the potential solutions to reduce emissions from primary iron and steelmaking.