Washington: A byproduct of steel industry, that also emits huge volume of carbon dioxide, could be used to absorb greenhouse gas and control global warming.

Mourad Kharoune, professor at cole de Technologie Suprieure, Montreal Canada and colleagues pointed out that production of a tonne of steel releases almost an equal amount of CO2. With global steel production standing at 1.34 billion tonnes in 2007, that adds up to a substantial contribution of carbon dioxide.

Kharoune suggested a new method to sequester, or capture, carbon dioxide so that it does not contribute to global warming - using steel slags, which are complex mixtures of compounds produced during the separation of the molten steel from impurities.

In the study, Kharoune suggested that electric arc furnace (EAF) and ladle furnace (LF) slag suspensions could be used for greenhouse-gas sequestration, according to a Sciencedaily press release.

According to the report, the ladle furnace slag suspension's capacity to sequester emissions was 14 times higher than that of the EAF suspension, possibly due to the LF's higher content of a rare mineral called portlandite.

 

Source : IANS