New Process and Application for Biogas in Metallurgy

摘要

It should be observed that Natural Gas Consumption is worldwide increasing; one reason is that environment pressurizes its use, because it generates fewer problems for the nature. If Oil or Natural Gas is used, than the GHG effect will be less for the first. In case of Brazil, there is additional problem that we do not have enough Natural Gas for using in many applications, mainly in Metallurgy field. For instances, in our Country we have only one Direct Reduction Plant that uses Natural Gas. It is responsible for less than 3% of all primary metal that is produced in Brazil. Anyway, the reserves in Brazil is by 800 Billion cubic meters and this amount is enough to supply the country for the next 50 years, but we do use only 37,5% of the NG, due to lack of investment. This paper consists on the premises that from Methane till Pentane from animals manures can be obtained from anaerobic digestion, then this gas can be employed in metallurgical process. This avoids big investment for natural gas exploration and by nature this one spends from 7 till 10 years to be used, after it was discovered. This idea can control the GHG Effect because the Methane production is 72 times worst than CO_2. Now, based on the amount of big, medium and low animals in Brazil, than means ca. of 1,4 billions of them, and if all of them can be confined, then a big amount of manure can be produced, then from CH_4 till C_5H_(12) can be produced from their manures and transformed in CO and H_2, afterwards these will be used in the known process like blast furnaces or even in Direct Reduction Units those can be built near the farms where the animals were confined. It can be concluded that this project should be one of the main objective of Brazilian Government for the next future.