High CO2 emissions and energy consumption have greatly restricted the development of China’s iron and steel industry. Two alternative ironmaking processes, top gas recycling-oxygen blast furnace (TGR-OBF) and COREX®, can reduce CO2 emissions and coking coal consumption in the steel industry when compared with a conventional blast furnace (BF). To obtain parameters on the material flow of these processes, two static process models for TGR-OBF and COREX were established. Combining the operating data from the Jingtang steel plant with established static process models, this research presents a detailed analysis of the material flows, metallurgical gas generation and consumption, electricity consumption and generation, comprehensive energy consumption, and CO2 emissions of three integrated steel plants (ISP) equipped with the BF, TGR-OBF, and COREX, respectively. The results indicated that the energy consumption of an ISP with the TGR-OBF was 16% and 16.5% lower than that of a conventional ISP and an ISP with the COREX. Compared with a conventional ISP, the coking coal consumption in an ISP with the TGR-OBF and an ISP with the COREX were reduced by 39.7% and 100% respectively. With the International Energy Agency factor, the ISP with the TGR-OBF had the lowest net CO2 emissions, which were 10.8% and 35.0% lower than that of a conventional ISP and an ISP with the COREX. With the China Grid factor, the conventional ISP had the lowest net CO2 emissions—2.8% and 24.1% lower than that of an ISP with the TGR-OBF and an ISP with the COREX, respectively.
The oxygen blast furnace with top gas recycling (TGR-OBF) ironmaking technology can reduce CO2 emissions, especially when combined with carbon capture and storage technology (CCS). However, the successful commercialization of technology cannot be achieved without economic evaluation. This study applied the Box–Behnken design method and a Monte Carlo simulation-based risk analysis to assess the sensitivity of influencing factors affecting the net present value (NPV) of an integrated steel plant (ISP) and to predict the impact of variable market scenarios on the NPV of three ISPs. The results indicated that among the three ISPs, the conventional ISP (C-ISP) is the least profitable, followed by the ISP equipped with TGR-OBF and CCS (ISP-OBF-CCS), and the most profitable is the ISP equipped with TGR-OBF (ISP-OBF), which is at least CNY 0.392 Bn and CNY 1.934 Bn more profitable than the ISP-OBF-CCS and C-ISP respectively. Under the current Chinese carbon trading policy and the cost of CCS, CCS technology does not make a company profitable. This study explored an approach for analyzing ISP economic applicability under uncertain markets, which can be used as a reference for the development of alternative processes for steel production.
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