Modeling MIDREX Based Process Configurations for Energy and Emission Analysis

A natural gas (NG) based MIDREX shaft model has been developed and validated for emission and energy estimation for crude steel production. The model is extended to hydrogen rich alternative fuels namely Coke Oven Gas (COG) and Syngas from coal gasification to predict emissions and energy for producing crude steel. On comparison with emissions and energy requirement of crude steel produced by BF-BOF route, NG based MIDREX-EAF exhibits the lowest emissions with comparable net energy requirement. Emission and energy for processes using alternative fuel inputs in MIDREX are higher. Processing of parallel streams of NG-MIDREX-EAF and BF-BOF for crude steel production appears to have a potential to reduce emissions at identical net energy consumption.