Abstract
Heat recovery plays an important role in energy saving in the supply chain of steel products. Almost all high temperature outputs in the steel industry have their thermal energy exchanged to preheat inputs to the process. Despite the widespread development of heat recovery technologies within process stages (process heat recovery), larger savings may be obtained by using a wider integrated network of heat exchange across various processes along the supply chain (integrated heat recovery). Previous pinch analyses have been applied to optimise integrated heat recovery systems in steel plants, although a comparison between standard process heat recovery and integrated heat recovery has not yet been explored. In this paper, the potential for additional energy savings achieved by using integrated heat recovery is estimated for a typical integrated steel plant, using pinch analysis. Overall, process heat recovery saves approximately 1.8GJ per tonne of hot rolled steel (GJ/thrs), integrated heat recovery with conventional heat exchange could save 2.5GJ/thrs, and an alternative heat exchange that also recovers energy from hot steel could save 3.0GJ/thrs. In developing these networks, general heat recovery strategies are identified that may be applied more widely to all primary steel production to enhance heat recovery. Limited additional savings may be obtained from the integration of the steel supply chain with other industries.
Highlights
The steel industry operates at some of the highest temperatures of all industrial processes and the whole supply chain involves multiple cycles of heating and cooling
Technologies exist for heat recovery from most of the hot outputs in the supply chain, but have been developed with a focus on each individual process stage, where the energy transfer occurs between the outputs and inputs of the same process
The results of the pinch analysis have shown that moving from process to integrated heat recovery could give additional energy savings of 0.9 GJ/t, and a further 1.6 GJ/t by exploiting all hot streams is possible in theory
Summary
The steel industry operates at some of the highest temperatures of all industrial processes and the whole supply chain involves multiple cycles of heating and cooling These high temperatures are fundamental to the operation of the supply chain—either to enable the reduction of iron ore into iron, to alter the microstructure to improve product properties, or to soften the metal so it may be formed to the desired shape. The method of pinch analysis is used to estimate the potential for additional savings through implementing integrated heat recovery across all processes in the primary steel supply chain This analysis is applied to a generic steel plant in design phase, not subject to limitations associated with the location of existing equipment
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