Improved through process temperature control as a driver for decarbonisation

在塔尔伯特港，我们在炼铁和炼钢过程中花费了大量的时间、精力和成本，在特定的温度范围内生产和保持液态金属，直到需要将其铸造成固体产品。作为炼钢过程中能源和排放最密集的领域，任何效率低下或计划外的损失都会导致本可以避免的额外成本和排放。例如，在高炉铸造（铁水）和将钢水铸造成板坯之间，我们有几个工艺步骤，以及从各种设施和工厂运输所述的铁水。按年计算，每一度的温度损失都会导致额外的加热需求，这在经济上是有影响的（每一度8万英镑），并导致使用额外的材料和燃料来重新加热液态金属。在这些恶劣环境中测量温度是具有挑战性的，因此有机会开发更先进、更强大的测温仪，以实现更多的过程洞察，并避免额外的材料使用，从而导致二氧化碳排放增加。在过程中有一些区域，温度测量主要是对大量材料的点测量，例如，用手持式红外温度计测量250吨“鱼雷”（铁路运输船）的铁水。我们已经尝试确定过程中不同阶段的温度，我们已经用一些商业上可用的磷光涂料进行了实验，但是存在知识差距，我们认为这是一个特别富有成效的研究途径，特别是与我们选择的合作者。

At Port Talbot we spend considerable time, effort and cost during our iron and steelmaking processes toproduce and maintain liquid metal within specific temperature windows until such time as it is required tobe cast into solid product. As the most energy and emissions intensive area within the steel makingprocess any inefficiencies or unplanned losses result in additional cost and emissions which could beavoided.As an example, between casting at the blast furnaces (molten iron) and casting the molten steel into slabwe have several process steps as well as transport of said hot metal from various facilities and plants.On an annualised basis every degree of temperature lost results in an additional heating requirementwhich is financially impactful (£80,000 per degree) and results in additional materials and fuels beingused to reheat the liquid metal.The measurement of temperature within these hostile environments is challenging and as such there areopportunities to develop more advanced and robust thermometry to enable more process insight as wellas enabling avoidance of additional material usage leading to increased CO2 emissions.There are areas within the process whereby the measurement of temperature is largely a pointmeasurement for a significant bulk of material e.g. a 250 tonne 'torpedo' (rail transport vessel) of molteniron is measured with a handheld IR thermometer. Attempts have been made to ascertain temperatureat various stages within the process and we have experimented with some commercially availablephosphorescent paints however there is a knowledge gap and it is felt this is a particularly fruitful avenueof research particularly with our chosen collaborators.