Abstract:
Brazil is one of the main steel producing countries in the world, occupying nineth position in the world ranking, it has a nominal production capacity of 50.3 million tons per year. The steel production process through an integrated plant consists of Load Preparation, Reduction, Steelmaking and Continuous Casting stages, and may also have Rolling Mill stages depending on the type of final product to be produced. Water is essential for the steel production process, but the sustainable practice of reducing, reusing, and recycling prevails in steel mills where commitment to the Environment is one of the organization's pillars. Given the need to increasingly reuse and cascate recovery water in production processes within the Steel Plant. Several improvements and adjustments are necessary, from investments in infrastructure to the replacement of water treatment technologies that can provide work with increasingly higher values for concentration cycle and consequently, reduction of consumption in open recirculation circuits. The concentration cycle is very important, but depends of several quality parameters were evaluated, which directly impact the Langelier Saturation Index (LSI). In this study, we identified the need to reduce “Chloride” levels in recirculating water, as they can be aggressive to in the middle, contributing to corrosive processes. The results obtained were supported by Veolia's expertise in an integrated and sustainable solution to the costumer, providing an alternative technology for the Industrial Water Clarification process, through coagulation stage with a low increase ion chloride.