Comparative Lifecycle Assessment of Methanol and Urea Produced from Steel Mill Gases

The Carbon2Chem project aims to utilize the process gases of commodity industrial sectors, e.g., steel mills as carbon source for chemicals industrial sector. This article examines the integrated production of steel and chemical considering five different designs for methanol production and two for urea production. The impacts of the integrated production of steel and chemicals (methanol, urea) are compared to the conventional production of steel and respective chemical. Employing Carbon2Chem technologies in a steelmaking facility in 2030 provides clear advantages in all investigated scenarios for global warming impact, even after taking into account the additional input of natural gas to substitute the steel mill gases in the power plant. Optimizing the demand of external hydrogen is the key to minimizing the global warming impact of the chemicals. When using wind power, total greenhouse gas emissions can be almost halved in the case of methanol and reduced to one-third in the case of urea.