Dedusting of Blast Furnaces 2 and 3 produces results
Considerable funds were invested by U. S. Steel Košice into two significant ecological projects last year. The projects co-financed by the European Fund for Regional Development within the Operational Program - Environment were intended to reduce emissions from solid pollutants by increasing dedusting efficiency in Blast Furnace #2 and Blast Furnace #3 to below the emission limits imposed by the standards. This resulted from the need to ensure compliance with the EU requirements and environmental rules of the BAT conclusions, i.e. the best available technology in the fields of crude iron and steelmaking that are binding from 2016 and are aimed at causing the minimum impact to the environment.
“The essence of both projects, finalized by inspection last December, was to replace the electrostatic separators with more efficient fabric filters, enabling emissions of solid pollutants to be reduced to a certain point only,” says Jozef Martoš, Director of Production Process Environment. “While previous average solid pollutant emissions (with a limit of one hundred milligrams per cubic meter) oscillated around sixty milligrams per cubic meter, the current situation is totally different. The first measuring with fabric filters recorded pollution of fifteen milligrams per cubic meter. So, the difference is remarkable.”
Another important contribution from this ecological project was remarkable reduction in heavy-metal emissions contained in solid pollutants (approx. by 99 percent) that are subject to charge obligation. In terms of the yearly amount of emissions of solid pollutants from Blast Furnace #2 and Blast Furnace #3, this is up to 92 percent reduction, which is reflected in the amount of statutory charges paid to the Environmental Fund, says Jozef Martoš. Each year, U. S. Steel Košice thus saves tens of thousands of euros.
“In this context, it was necessary to make changes in the charge calculation methodology,” explains Denisa Jassová, Air Balance Specialist, who worked on this difficult task along with Peter Kolcun, Lead Manager for Production Environment, and Igor Bukata, Blast Furnace Ecologist. “At the end of each year, the District Authority's Environmental Department issues a decision based on which new charge calculation methodology will be applied. Of course, this is preceded by a yearly balance of amounts of solid pollutants.”
