Integrating Process Simulation and Life Cycle Assessment for Enhanced Process Efficiency and Reduced Environmental Impact in Ferromanganese Production

Process simulation was integrated with life cycle assessment to evaluate process efficiency and environmental impact of the production of manganese ferroalloys for various production modes and different ore mineralogies. Utilizing HSC Sim, the model was designed to evaluate the production process with or without a pretreatment step, where results for simulated cases using a four-zone ferromanganese furnace model were exported to openLCA for a complete life cycle assessment. Two main production scenarios were simulated: a closed ferromanganese furnace running on the duplex method and an open furnace running on the discard slag approach. The closed furnace scenario achieved a 17.5% reduction in energy consumption and a 16.2% decrease in direct CO2 emissions with CO-rich off-gas pretreatment. The open furnace scenario showed an 11.2% reduction in energy consumption with thermal solar energy pretreatment but no change in CO2 emissions.