ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABILITY HEADLINESEnvironment and Sustainability
ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe Starts up Dust Collection System
May 3, 2012 ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe has started operation of an additional 30-million-euro dust collection system on the sinter belts at its Schwelgern plant unit, which is intended to further reduce particulate emissions in the north of Duisburg by up to 3 micrograms per cubic meter.
The plant at ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe produces around 12 million tonnes of sinter per year. It already had filters with a total surface area of 150,000 square meters, which cleaned approximately 100 billion cubic meters of gas per year.
The captured iron-bearing dusts can be cycled back to the sinter plant.
To improve control of particulate emissions further, ThyssenKrupp Steel has installed among other things an additional fabric filter downstream of the existing electrostatic gas cleaners. In addition, new high-voltage electrostatic precipitators separate particulates inside the sinter belt areas. At the same time, further particulate sources have been connected to the improved dust collection systems, a measure that goes beyond what was recommended by the Clean Air Plan for the western Ruhr.
“The aim behind this voluntary measure is to help achieve a sustainable improvement in the particulate situation in the north of Duisburg,” said Dr. Gunnar Still, head of Environmental Affairs at ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe. “However, our company cannot bring about lasting compliance with the standards on its own. The background pollution from traffic or other local sources is too great. Further efforts at federal and state level and an intensive dialogue among all parties are needed.”
In recent years, the company has launched wide-ranging programs that have led to a reduction in dust pollution. For example, blast furnace 8, commissioned in December 2007, has a unique dust collection system for capturing emissions during rail car unloading that cost the company 20 million euros. Altogether, a quarter of the 250 million euro investment in the blast furnace was spent on pollution control.
In October 2004, ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe began operation of a system to collect dust emissions from the casthouse and stockhouse of blast furnace 1. The 16.5 million euro unit cleans 1.8 million cubic meters of air per hour via 18 different extraction points. The investment was part of a 62 million euro program to reduce dust emissions from the Schwelgern plant unit, in the course of which the rotary coolers in the sinter plant were also enclosed at a cost of 33 million euros.