Flue Gas Treatment of Iron and Steel Enterprises under Multiple Pressure
It’s less than a month since the new "environmental protection law" carrying out from January 1, 2015, and there will be more strict environmental protection laws and regulations implemented next. At the moment, the whole steel industry is facing the problem of overcapacity and the management difficulty. Shall iron and steel enterprises meet the new standards? Signs show that surrounded by a series of environmental policies, iron and steel industry such a big air pollution blamer is hinting at changes to come. Recently, vice President of the China steel industry association, Wang Xiaoji said: " to meet the new environmental standards, the steel industry still needs to be invested tens of billions of yuan of money purchasing environmental protection equipment, and long-term operating cost will be greater, and enterprise funds are under more nervous pressure. Until January 1, 2015 the new environmental law is implemented, it’s difficult for iron and steel industry to implement the new standard of emission standards of new enterprises. Most of these indicators are difficult to achieve. Many indicators, such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides cannot generally reach the standard in accordance with the existing facilities."
Iron and steel industry belongs to the resource-intensive industries, and the main object of development is all kinds of powder, massive black metal and non-metallic minerals, with large scale of production and complex processing, including selecting ore, metal smelting and metallurgical products processing, etc. Emissions of waste gas in iron and steel industry can be divided into three categories: first is emissions in the process of production process, such as smoke and dust in sintering, steel smelting and rolling process, sulfur dioxide and other harmful gases; The second category is flue gas containing dust and sulfur dioxide produced by the burning of coal, gas and other fuels in the furnaces; The third kind is the dust produced by the raw material and fuel in the process of transportation, loading and unloading. So far, the flue gas treatment of China’s iron and steel industry is imminent.
Persistent policy pressure
On July 25, Ministry of Environmental Protection have issued the“time limited governing project of key industries of atmospheric pollution in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and other surrounding areas”. And following on November 16,“time limited governing project of key industries of atmospheric pollution in Yangtze River Delta region and the surrounding areas ”“time limited governing project of key industries of atmospheric pollution in the pearl river delta and the surrounding areas”are issued. All these three files are looking the iron and steel industry as one of the four key polluting industries, with electric power, cement, flat glass industry in time limited plan of governing atmospheric pollution.
These three regions respectively put forward different requirements for pollution control of iron and steel enterprise. The requirements of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei region is: strengthening the desulfurization dust removal facilities construction, installing desulfurization facilities to sintering and pellet production equipment, and implementing flue gas desulfurization and gradually dismantling the flue gas bypass. By the end of 2014, in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei region, there were 257 sets of steel sintering machine ( including the pellets ) had completed the desulferization renovation and 139 iron and steel enterprises had dedusting comprehensive treatment; The requirements of Yangtze river delta region is: before July 1, 2015, Yangtze river delta region should complete the desulferized renovation of 51 steel sintering machine ( including the pellets ), and 48 iron and steel enterprise achieve dust removing integrated management; The requirements of the pearl river delta region is: before July 1, 2015, the pearl river delta and the surrounding areas should complete the desulferized renovation of 20 steel sintering machine ( including the pellets ), 3 iron and steel enterprises complete comprehensive control of dust.
Unprecedented financial pressure
The financial pressure of iron and steel industry is increasing. According to media reports, in the first three quarters, the net profit of 40 listed iron and steel industry companies totaled 6 . 046 billion yuan, down 17 . 9 % from a year earlier, with 18 of 40 listed companies decline. Downstream demand is weak. Steel prices upward momentum is insufficient.Prices are falling. Overall Steel mills profit is declining and tension of funding level generally become a dilemma for steel mills.
Flue gas treatment of iron and steel sectors includes desulfurization, denitration and dedusting, etc. Investment and operation costs of environmental protection equipment is generally high , which increases the financial pressure of steel mills. And in addition to having advanced management equipment,steel mills pollution governing also needs to input relative human, material and energy, plus the tightening of air pollutants emission standards, especially for the limitation of emissions of pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and flue gas, which means updating equipment and improving technology basing on the existing foundation. These are virtually increasing the financial pressure for the steel mills in flue gas treatment.
Strengthened environmental governance
During the APEC, many iron and steel enterprises in different regions are restricted or stopped to produce. North star energy conservation and environmental protection network noted that although APEC has passed, the pressure of the prevention and control of atmospheric pollution is persistent. As heavy polluters, Iron and steel enterprises constantly increase manpower and financial investment for flue gas treatment, contributing to the prevention and control of atmospheric pollution.
Through applying the dust recycling technology in steel producing system, Hebei ChengGang iron and steel group company cumulatively recycles and collects more than 9000 tons dusts for plain steel production, not only cleaning the dust but also increasing efficiency of more than 5 million yuan.
Hubei wugang invests 500 million yuan to reform the desulfurization and denitration emission by dust remover of sintering plant, coking plant and iron mills, to reduce atmospheric pollution and achieve the standards set by the state environmental protection department.
Inner Mongolia tungsten steel environmental upgrading construction key project - flue gas desulfurization project officially returns to work, which meanwhile marks that the tungsten steel environmental protection upgrading project is fully carried out. Adopting of Danish production rotary screw spray device, the advantages of desulfurization efficiency is above 95 %.
Main operation index such as synchronous rate between three flue gas desulfurization machine and sintering machine in sintering plant of Jiangxi New Steel Group has greatly improved. SO2 emissions targets and the dust concentration of the three flue gas desulfurization machine is better than the national discharge standard.
Anhui maanshan iron and steel co.,LTD., is carrying out the flue gas desulfurization removal project, and adding a set of flue gas desulfurization device: including electrostatic precipitator , desulfurization tower, bag dust collector and so on.
Liaoning anshan mining group Gongchangling pellet plant is positively performing the corporate environmental responsibility, increasing investment in environmental protection in many ways , with the investment of 63.56 million yuan ,and installing flue gas desulfurization dust removal equipment for two production lines, making an important contributions to the blue sky project of Liaoning province. (source : environmental protection net)