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Reducing Iron Oxide with Ammonia: A Sustainable Path to Green Steel

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Re: Reducing Iron Oxide with Ammonia: A Sustainable Path to Green Steel

#41

Post by lmm »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #39
boshomi wrote: post #18

Reduction of iron ore with carbon monoxid in closed loop: • Decarbonisation of BF-BOF through thermochemical closed carbon looping. • Demonstration of mass and energy flows of thermochemical BF-BOF system. • 88% emissions reduction of UK steel industry through £720 million investment. • Decarbonisation without retiring of existing BF-BOF, reducing stranded assets. • After 5 years, £1.28 billion savings and total UK-w…

The UK steel industry is 0.1% of the UK economy, at around 7 million tonnes per annum. China producuces a little over 1 billion metric tonnes per annum By what measure is this not futile?

So the UK, with about 4.7% the population of China, produces 0.7% as much steel, i.e. the ratios are within an order of magnitude. And presumably what works in the UK will work in China too.

Re: Reducing Iron Oxide with Ammonia: A Sustainable Path to Green Steel

#42

Post by iamerroragent »

benkitzelman wrote: post #30

Lots of refs here to the Haber-Bosch process in creating the ammonia... for those interested in a break down of what it is - https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-does-the-worlds-reliance... ...sort of feels like kicking the can down the road if this is how the ammonia is generated for "Green Steel".

From article:

" Currently, ammonia is synthesized through the Haber–Bosch process by converting hydrogen and nitrogen into ammonia. In this process, hydrogen is mainly produced via steam methane reforming. This fact makes the process of fossil-fuel-based ammonia synthesis very carbon dioxide intensive, accounting for ≈1% of the global carbon dioxide emissions.[11, 16] Yet more sustainable ammonia synthesis pathways are under development to mitigate carbon dioxide emissions in the ammonia industry.[11, 16] For instance, the electrically driven hybrid Haber–Bosch process (via replacing the steam methane reforming by water electrolysis to obtain green hydrogen and coupling with an ammonia synthesis reactor in the Haber–Bosch process) or direct electrosynthesis using renewable energy (via nitrogen reduction reaction) enables the production of green ammonia.[11, 16] "

Not sure how that is kicking the can.

Re: Reducing Iron Oxide with Ammonia: A Sustainable Path to Green Steel

#43

Post by s0rce »

panick21_ wrote: post #28

I think a much better is done by Boston Metal: https://www.bostonmetal.com/ Based on this paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature12134

This is has been a long time in a making, hopefully these guys can do it. I talked to Donald Sadoway about his work in this area when I visited MIT. Exciting possibilities here and in improving electrochemical aluminum refining.

Re: Reducing Iron Oxide with Ammonia: A Sustainable Path to Green Steel

#44

Post by peterashford »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #39
boshomi wrote: post #18

Reduction of iron ore with carbon monoxid in closed loop: • Decarbonisation of BF-BOF through thermochemical closed carbon looping. • Demonstration of mass and energy flows of thermochemical BF-BOF system. • 88% emissions reduction of UK steel industry through £720 million investment. • Decarbonisation without retiring of existing BF-BOF, reducing stranded assets. • After 5 years, £1.28 billion savings and total UK-w…

The UK steel industry is 0.1% of the UK economy, at around 7 million tonnes per annum. China producuces a little over 1 billion metric tonnes per annum By what measure is this not futile?

Almost every individual action by a single emitter makes a tiny contribution to AGW.

Re: Reducing Iron Oxide with Ammonia: A Sustainable Path to Green Steel

#45

Post by kokanee »

iamerroragent wrote: post #42
benkitzelman wrote: post #30

Lots of refs here to the Haber-Bosch process in creating the ammonia... for those interested in a break down of what it is - https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-does-the-worlds-reliance... ...sort of feels like kicking the can down the road if this is how the ammonia is generated for "Green Steel".

From article: " Currently, ammonia is synthesized through the Haber–Bosch process by converting hydrogen and nitrogen into ammonia. In this process, hydrogen is mainly produced via steam methane reforming. This fact makes the process of fossil-fuel-based ammonia synthesis very carbon dioxide intensive, accounting for ≈1% of the global carbon dioxide emissions.[11, 16] Yet more sustainable ammonia synthesis pathways a…

I work at a company that is creating better electrolyzers for this process. Ammonia producers are clamoring for this technology. It works, and it is happening!

Re: Reducing Iron Oxide with Ammonia: A Sustainable Path to Green Steel

#47

Post by senectus1 »

photochemsyn wrote: post #17
PaulHoule wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think the question is how far you are shipping the hydrogen. If, say, people are making hydrogen in (say) the Middle East and shipping it to (say) Europe then the overhead of liquifying or compressing H2 is on the same order as converting to ammonia. In that paper they demonstrate that you can just use the ammonia directly to reduce iron and not have a separate system to convert it back. If you have a big wind powe…

I think it's more rational to ship the hydrogen as methane, rather than ammonia. The energetics are comparable IIRC (Sabatier for methane, Haber-Bosch for ammonia, but it's more or less the same kind of high-pressure moderate-temp chemistry pipeline). Methane from CO2 + H2 vs. ammonia from N2 + H2, it's just that the latter technology has seen more research and investment.

The ammonia has a purpose on its own, as fertilizer. The nitrogen used to make it, is also freely pulled from the atmosphere

Re: Reducing Iron Oxide with Ammonia: A Sustainable Path to Green Steel

#48

Post by stevenjgarner »

benkitzelman wrote: post #30

Lots of refs here to the Haber-Bosch process in creating the ammonia... for those interested in a break down of what it is - https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-does-the-worlds-reliance... ...sort of feels like kicking the can down the road if this is how the ammonia is generated for "Green Steel".

And yet the creation of hydrogen through electrolysis of water is both well understood and potentially green if solar and wind electricity is used for electrolysis. This would also bypass either the capital intensive requirement to moderate solar and wind electricity with battery energy storage and/or the losses in transmitting solar and wind electricity over the grid.

Re: Reducing Iron Oxide with Ammonia: A Sustainable Path to Green Steel

#50

Post by jojobas »

gumby wrote: post #3
Robotbeat wrote: post #2

I don’t get this. We already use direct reduction using about half hydrogen, and that can be increased to over 90%. Producing ammonia via the Haber process means losing 40% or so of the energy (and potentially more as you convert it back), so why not just use hydrogen directly? Simply because moving hydrogen is harder than ammonia? I think it makes way more sense to just make and use the hydrogen on-site.

You said it: transporting, storing, and otherwise handling ammonia is easier than H2. Amd handling a lump of coke is even easier, which is why we started there.

If hydrogen is electrolytic you can as well make it on site. Steel mills are continuous operations and there is not much need to pool/smooth demand.
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