Comparative Analysis of the Influence of Fuel Injection on the Energy Intensity and Carbon Footprint of the Blast-Furnace Process

The data on the energy intensity, carbon dioxide emission, and end-to-end emission (carbon footprint) for the production of vanadium iron in coke-fired blast furnaces with injection of either natural gas or both natural gas and pulverized coal are presented. Energy intensity is represented by end-to-end process fuel number. Mean values, variance, standard deviation, range of variation of process fuel number, emission, and end-to-end emission of carbon dioxide are calculated using published data on the consumption of coke, natural gas, and pulverized coal in a blast furnace. It is shown that the process with injection of pulverized coal has better performance in terms of energy intensity. Carbon footprint is minimum when injecting natural gas only.