Coke Ovens "Getting Cleaner"

Coke oven technology in the 21st century will cut down on harmful gas produced by burning coal at high temperatures, whether its done by recovering the gaseous byproducts or burning them in the ovens, industry experts said on Tuesday.

The process by which noxious gases are burned in the coke ovens "is taking off in the U.S.," because it is a simpler process and poses less risk to the environment, said Hardarshan Valia, the co-chairman of the Met Coke World Summit, which opened yesterday in the Pittsburgh Hilton Hotel. The event, which has attracted more than 200 industry representatives from around the world, continues until Thursday.

"You can't smell the benzene or the other gases. Most of the steelmakers are going that way," said Valia, a metallurgical coal consultant and president of Coal Science Inc., a consulting firm in Highland, Ind.

Coke, produced by burning pulverized bituminous coal inside sealed ovens at high temperatures for about 18 hours, is used as fuel in a blast furnace to make steel. U.S. production of coke has dropped in recent years as the steel industry consolidated and coke production moved overseas, a result of increased demand in China and India, and stricter U.S. environmental regulations, Valia said.

The process where the gases are burned inside coke ovens uses the same principle as the H.C. Frick Coke Co.'s beehive coke ovens that dotted Fayette County in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but are not polluting the environment, said Hope Huntingdon of Murrysville, manager of technical services for Clark Laboratories LLC of Jefferson.

Unlike in Henry Clay Frick's day, when the coke ovens polluted the air, the gases are captured in process and burned up. "It's sucking the air in and not letting it escape," said Huntingdon, a former U.S. Steel Corp. researcher.

The more traditional process for reducing coke plant gas is the byproduct recovery system used along the Monongahela River at Clairton, where U.S. Steel operates the nation's largest coke manufacturing plant. The plant can produce about 4.7 million tons of coke annually.

In April, U.S. Steel postponed an $1.1 billion project to install new coke batteries and upgrade older ones because of a downturn in the steel industry.

Source: Pittsburgh Tribune