Life cycle assessment of iron ore sintering process

Iron ore sintering is an energy-intensive process associated with emission of pollutants in iron and steel industry. In order to comprehensively evaluate the environmental impacts of sintering, a detailed life cycle assessment of a sintering plant was conducted. Life cycle inventory showed that, in the production of 1 t sinter ore, 241.53 kg CO2, 22.68 kg CO, 0.294 kg SO2, 0.63 kg NOx, 1.18 µg dioxin and 0.48 kg dust were discharged. Global warming potentials, acidification potentials, photochemical ozone creation potentials and human toxicity potentials were selected as four impact categories, and the evaluation index for the sintering plant was calculated as 3.45 × 10−12. Finally, based on the environmental impact analysis, several measures of reducing environmental loadings of the sintering plant were provided, which included the utilization of denitrification equipment, recirculation of the hot waste gas and process improvement to reduce fuel consumption.