The power of water

This wonderful liquid does wonder

Photo by Elizeu Dias on Unsplash

Water is very important and useful, and it is needed in many industries, like food and dairy (processing, packaging, transport), chemicals (transportation of materials/chemicals; transportation of products), construction (cement, bricks manufacturing; mixing concrete), steel manufacturing (steel making) and more.

Let’s take a look at steel production.

The steel-making process is one of the most energy-intensive industrial processes in the world, which accounts for almost 8% of global primary energy demand.

Iron ore is usually converted into pig iron, which contains ~72% iron, before being further processed to obtain various types of steel. For example, this is done by removing carbon from pig iron to obtain steel. In this process, huge amounts of coke oven gas are produced as a by-product.

Coke oven gas is composed mostly of hydrogen and methane (CH) with some carbon dioxide (CO). To purify the CO from the CH substances, a shift reaction is done in order to obtain syngas (synthetic gas).

Syngas is produced by reacting CO with steam (H2O) at high temperature (700–1100 °C), This reaction is endothermic, thus the required energy to drive it comes from burning methane. A shift reaction needs 3 moles of H2O for every mole of CO.

Therefore, if we consider the entire steel-making process (including purification), we can say that hydrogen is derived from water.

Water has a significant impact on the reduction of carbon emissions and is an important part of many other processes like steam generation and cleaning materials like metal and silicon surfaces.

Without clean water and with high demand for energy, the world industry will have problems in production. There are some places on this earth with limited resources of clean water and high demand for energy.

Water shortage is not only a problem in developing countries but also in developed countries. In many areas, there won’t be enough water to produce electricity or even have a sustainable lifestyle in general.

Water — a basic need for life, yet it is also a crucial element for many industries that are vital to the economy. As the world…