As outlined in a news release dated 3 May 2023, Pyro Green-Gas was contracted to supply (i) coke-oven gas purification solutions and (ii) hydrogen production processes, to extract hydrogen and other toxic gases from the blast furnace process, then separate, clean, and process the gases to render hydrogen to a 99.999% purity level. With this announcement, the project has been completed, and the systems developed by Pyro Green-Gas are in continuous 24 hr/d operation at the Tata steel facility in Kalinganagar, India. The newly reformed hydrogen produced by the system is being reused by other applications at the facility, improving production efficiency and environmental outcomes. The project contributes to Tata’s circular production goals, as well as to their cost reduction programmes.
P. Peter Pascali, President and CEO of PyroGenesis, said: “Our engineers worked closely with Tata Steel to develop a solution to meet the needs of one of the largest steel facilities in the world, including the integration of advanced solutions (such as water-injected compressors that eliminate the potential for oil contamination during the processing of hydrogen) further contributing to sustainability in steelmaking.”
Blast furnaces utilise coking coal, or ‘coke’, as part of the process to transform iron ore into steel. Coke acts as both a fuel to generate the intense heat required for smelting and as a reducing agent to remove oxygen from the iron ore. The gas released during the coke production process, known as coke-oven gas or COG, is a mix of human carcinogens comprised of approximately 54% hydrogen with the balance consisting of methane, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, tar, naphthalene, and other hydrocarbons which must be separated and removed before the hydrogen can be cleaned, reformed, and reused. PyroGenesis’ subsidiary Pyro Green-Gas has decades of experience designing and installing technology solutions for these purposes.
“With more than 1400 blast furnaces in existence across 477 plants in 55 countries, and with (as of September 2023) 70% of planned new global steel projects intending to use blast furnaces, the need for effective COG cleaning and valorisation solutions in the steel industry is likely to continue for decades,” added Pascal. “The systems that we have installed at the Tata Steel Kalinganagar facility are purifying 32 000 m3 of coke-oven gas per hour while extracting 620 m3 of ready-to-use hydrogen per hour. This represents just a fraction of the potential impact our technologies can have as more steel plants embrace the concept of COG valorisation.”
PyroGenesis development of coke oven gas cleaning solutions are part of the company’s three-columned solution ecosystem that aligns with economic drivers that are key to global heavy industry.