Optimized Choice for Pollution Control Systems in Smelting Furnaces with Green Approach

Abstract

Furnace division is one of the most polluted divisions ever known in the steel industry associated with several environmental pollutions. This study attempted to choose optimally, a pollution control system for dust emission from steel furnaces with the Green and environmentally friendly approach. Three electric smelting furnaces with 3, 6 and 12-ton output capacity were selected. The level of energy cost and consumption, capital and environmental damage, and indexes of environmental sustainability in bag houses and electrostatic precipitators based on computational methods and governing equations were studied. Findings showed that the total cost of bag houses in a steel electric furnace was lower than the total cost of electrostatic precipitators in the initial year and they were almost equal in the fourth year while the total cost of the former is higher than that of the latter after twenty years - the operational lifetime of dust collectors. It may be concluded that considering the environmental sustainability and industrial ecology, it would be reasonable and more economical to use bag houses for four years and electrostatic precipitators for longer periods.

Keywords

• Industrial ecology
• Pollutants
• Steel industry