The Norwegian ferroalloy industry (with a significant international ownership) cooperates in the field of environmental challenges, and is internationally renowned for sustainable production. The innovation is therefore on a national and international level.
An innovation step change in design of ferroalloy furnaces is envisaged. A new concept for off-gas processing for the ferroalloy industry will be assessed, tested and evaluated. The concept consists of a combination of a traditional SAF combined combined with an advanced system heat recovery. Implementation will be based on experiences from other industries, such as waste incineration and steel industries, but its implementation to the ferroalloy industry is novel and has never before been tested. Should the concept prove to be successful, it may lead to other innovations in the process such as redesign of the furnace itself and conversion of today's waste streams (dust/sludge from filter systems) into valuable products. The generic concept can be employed for both ferromanganese and ferrosilicon furnaces.
In order to assess the benefits of the new concept, best available techniques (BAT) will be developed where optimized conventional off-gas units are used for benchmarking. The implementation of optimized heat recovery on existing furnaces will represent an incremental innovation.
The R&D project's main objective is to develop "best available technology" and competence to assess and develop an innovative concept for energy recovery in the ferroalloy industry.
The following objectives will be targeted:
- Assess, test and evaluate a novel off-gas concept with:
- high potential for improved energy recovery from 30% to35% in recovery of electricity and from 80% to 90% recovery of heat in form of high pressure steam or hot water
- make expensive wet flue gas cleaning systems redundant and enable efficient recycling of filter dusts to improve resource utilization
- Assess the improvement potential of conventional off-gas units by design optimization as benchmark for the new concept