Environmental and Energy Consumption Footprint of Vanadiumcorp-Electrochem Process Technology

Adriaan Bakker, CEO of VanadiumCorp states, “85% of vanadium is derived from very few magnetite resources in the world with limited recovery, high cost and a large carbon foot print. Conversely, the new carbon free, high efficiency approach from VanadiumCorp-Electrochem represents maximum transformation of all value add products and vanadium electrolyte direct from ground source.  The current mandate continues to assess global licensing opportunities representing potential cash flow and accelerated validation ahead of further patent and resource developments.

According to the World Steel Association in 2016, the worldwide steel production currently totals about 1.6 billion tonnes per year. The prevailing Blast furnace process produces pig iron from iron ore using carbon as reductant; the process releases carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Production of a tonne of steel generates 1.8 tonnes of CO2 emissions, according to steel industry figures, accounting for as much as 5 percent of the world’s total greenhouse-gas emissions. The industry has met little success in its search for carbon-free methods of manufacturing steel. Steelmaking is one of the world’s leading industrial sources of greenhouse gases.

VanadiumCorp and Electrochem have developed a new chemical technology solution in early 2017 that can be both adapted and integrated into current steel and vanadium operations and constructed as a standalone facility to monetize all value add products of various feedstocks, carbon free energy, maximum recovery into high purity products.

Among the two conventional processing routes used industrially, only the smelting/slagging and roasting processes such as those formerly performed by Highveld in the republic of South Africa and New Zealand Steel in New Zealand were addressing the particular issue of full iron recovery. They did produce pig iron containing 1.25 mass percent vanadium first by smelting/slagging that was then converted into steel by injecting oxygen into the molten metal yielding a secondary vanadium-rich slag containing 12-24 mass percent V2O5 from which vanadium pentoxide was finally extracted by soda ash roasting and hot water leaching.

However, the energy consumed during the smelting and slagging steps together with the CO2 emissions are rather significant. To our knowledge no detailed life cycle analysis studies are available in the public domain regarding specifically the vanadium industry, however it is still possible to have access to reliable data regarding iron and steel making processes such as those published in: Fruehan, R.J.; , Fortoni, O.; Paxton, H.W.; and Brindle, R. (2000) – Theoretical Minimum Energies To Produce Steel for Selected Conditions. –  Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.

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