Australian smart technology that harvests blast furnace waste and converts it into a new product to make cement, is being trialed for commercialization in China, according to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
The process, known as Dry Slag Granulation, also reduces water use and greenhouse gas emissions, and is the focus of an agreement signed by CSIRO and the Beijing MCC Equipment Research & Design Corporation (MCCE).
The signing of the agreement, to demonstrate CSIRO’s Dry Slag Granulation (DSG) technology at industrial scale, is a landmark for Australia-China research collaboration and for environmentally friendly metal production, according to CSIRO Director of the Mineral Resources Flagship, Jonathan Law.
“Our collaboration is an exciting step towards the uptake of an innovation with real prospects of transforming the productivity and environmental performance of global iron smelting,” Law said.
“The benefits from wide uptake of DSG technology on blast furnaces will be profound in helping the global industry to reduce water and energy use and greenhouse gas emissions while sustaining metal production,” he said.
The DSG technology that is fitted to blast furnaces includes a spinning disc and granulation chamber that separates molten slag into droplets under centrifugal forces, uses air to quench and solidify the droplets, and extracts a granulated slag product as well as heated air.
The process produces a “glassy” product that is ideal for cement manufacture, but has significantly lower associated greenhouse gas emissions than cement produced by conventional methods.
Air at 500-600 degrees Celsius extracted from the DSG process can be used onsite for drying, preheating or steam generation.
The technology also saves water and eliminates the underground water pollution that can be associated with alternative wet granulation processes.
“The benefits each year from full commercialization and adoption of DSG technology are in the order of 60 billion liters of water, 800 petajoules of heat energy and 60 million tones of greenhouse gas emissions,” Law said.
