Bangalore: At a time when everybody is talking about carbon emissions from industrial furnace, India born engineering professor Veena Sahajwalla came up with a brilliant idea, revolutionizing the process of steel making. She came up with an amazingly easy science that astounded everybody, leading to better steel and lesser emissions. Veena was recently conferred the Nokia Innovation Award at the 2011 Telstra NSW Business Women's Awards for her contributions to world's first green steel manufacturing process. Her discovery helped many industries combat environmental challenges with a technology that reduces carbon emissions and uses recycled rubber tyres and plastics in Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) for steel making.
In a steel making EAF, coal is required to create carbon reactions at high temperatures. After years of research in laboratories, one day it suddenly struck Veena that the same carbon could be generated by burning waste plastics that would otherwise pill up in landfills. This led her research team to create a landmark EAF. The new EAF process saves about 30percent coal, replacing it with polyethylene plastic waste, reducing garbage. It was also found that compared to coal, burning of plastics emitted less carbon . Moreover, to the delight of Veena, the steel formed from the combustion of plastics and tyres were better formed.
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