Techno-economic assessment and comparison of CO₂ capture technologies for industrial processes

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 CO₂ avoidance cost of less than 50 €/tonne at a CO₂ 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 CO₂ capture for conventional BF may achieve similar costs (40 - 50 €/tCO₂ avoided), but the CO₂ avoidance rate will be only about 15% of the specific CO₂ 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 CO₂ emissions reduction may drive the sector towards large scale implementation of advanced smelting reduction technologies.