Waste Gas Stream Disposal

Del,

Sounds like a good plan given that media might put a spin on the fact that it would be good for the environment and for the user. We could make tons of money. However, the reason I raised the question goes to a GW article I read in the newspaper yesterday concerning discharge of CO2 from a local steel mill where I was employed prior to their bankruptcy and sale to a new owner.

The article, written by someone that had no knowledge of Blast Furnace operations, got me to thinking about what to do with excess carbon (CO2 or CO) spewed into our environment from that process. The writer assumed that oxygen was used directly to combust coke (~95% carbon) to CO2 reather than the air typically used in a BF.

Putting my fuel technologist hat on, I realized that if the operating conditions in a BF were modified it might be possible to generate a stream composed mainly of CO2 and CO with water vapor and a small amount of H2. Use of such a syngas might possibly be modified and used for input to a Fischer-Tropsch process to produce a wide array of synthetic materials including gasoline, which could turn a waste gas (and contributor to the carbon footprint) into a saleable product rather than a fine generating GW gas.

Given the large quantities of CO2 gas discharged to the atmosphere from a single BF, a significant amount of synthetic gasoline could potentially be produced; certainly a valuable commodoty produced for sale while eliminating some greenhouse gases. Of course, this is not without cost, but if governement is serious about GW, they should pay part of the cost.

Btw, I am not a fan of GW rhetoric, I'm only looking at ways to make it pay.

Things that sound expensive & silly when oil is $20/bbl

Look clever & innovative when oil is $100/bbl

syngas would be good either raw or further processed to a liquid fuel

Growing Algae for ethanol & biodiesel production looks promising

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae#Energy_source

http://www.oilgae.com/

At what pressure? What physical location

I like to inject that sort of thing back into the ground in an oil field for enhanced recovery. We have even piped CO2 a long ways from the source to put it in the ground.

Pipe it into greenhouses & grow plants

Algae for the production of biodiesel

"I am posing the following question to the forum engineers and scientists: If you had an industrial process that has a large-scale stream composed primarily of CO2 and water vapor, how would you dispose of it?"

The water vapor is of no consequence. The CO2 is a problem common to many industries. One solution would be to supply it to a large green house.

"Suppose alternatively , that said stream contained a large content of N2 (same question)."

Discharge it to the atmosphere, which is composed of ~80% N2!

Feed it to plants. They are very good at turning it to carbohydrate and oxygen, and do so all over the planet. The nitrogen doesn't get much of a look-in, by the way.