Process-level emission analysis and decarbonization pathway for BF-BOF route in Indian iron and steel industry

The blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) route contributes 46% to the production of iron and steel in India and is highly energy and emission-intensive. Its decarbonization needs to be prioritized for reducing long-term climate-related impacts. So far, studies have assessed the macro-level carbon emission and energy consumption of the entire industry (encompassing all production routes i.e., BF-BOF, EAF, DRI, SR-BOF, etc.), and lacks the specific plan for decarbonization of plants based on BF-BOF route. Secondly, these studies have focused on just a single input (raw material, energy, fuel, etc.) and the respective output (steel) and lack the analysis of detailed process-wise material and energy flow and consideration of fugitive emissions, which is needed for emission mitigation of entire BF-BOF based plants, which produces 57.37 million tons of crude steel in India. The current study addresses this gap through a case study of a BF-BOF-based plant by comprehensively analyzing the material and energy flow for each production step followed by assessing the respective carbon emissions. Further, a marginal abatement cost curve (MACC) is developed to identify the process-wise cost-effective mitigation measures. The current study shows that the implementation of proposed measures can significantly reduce carbon emissions from 3.3 to 2.43 tCO₂/tcs, making it equal to the global counterparts.