Low Emission Steelmaking

Abstract

PrefaceSteel is one of the most important structural materials in the world. It is used in virtually all industry sectors and, after cement, is the leading manmade material produced, with the annual production rate reaching 1660 million tonnes in 2014 [1].Through continuous development and implementation of incremental technologies, the steel industry has improved its energy efficiency and reduced its specific energy consumption by about 60 % over the past 50-60 years. The close linkage between energy consumption and CO 2 emission has resulted in a similar reduction in specific CO 2 emission, where currently about 2.2 t CO 2 is produced per tonne of crude steel manufactured through efficient integrated blast furnace and BOF plants [2].Climate Change was understood fairly early in Europe not only as a challenge for society, but also as an opportunity for the carbon-intensive steel sector to explore radically new steel production technologies, even before the Kyoto protocol was signed [3]. Many wide-ranging studies were conducted to identify solution paths at a company level and in an international context [4][5][6]. The work carried out then showed that to reduce the specific emissions of the steel sector to the level of climate change expectation, i.e., 50 % or preferably more, it was necessary to introduce deep paradigm changes in the way steel is made, as the existing production routes had only a small leeway for improvement, 15 % or less for the world class steel mills.

Magnesia-stabilised zirconia solid electrolyte assisted electrochemical investigation of iron ions in a SiO2–CaO–MgO–Al2O3molten slag at 1723 K

“…Iron oxides mainly include Fe2O3 and FeO. However Fe2O3 is highly unstable at higher temperatures and can be decomposed into FeO and O2 under certain conditions according to reaction (2). In a real industrial electrolysis for iron production, iron ore will be used as the raw material.…”

“…For this reason, the ultra-low CO2 steelmaking (ULCOS) program has been set up in Europe with the aim to develop four breakthrough technologies that are expected to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. 2 Electrolytic production, as one of the four technologies, has drawn increasing attention along with the development of renewable electricity in recent years. Coupled with an inert anode, it can obtain carbon-free iron, shorten the smelting process, and also eliminate the CO2 emissions.…”

A General Vision for Reduction of Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions from the Steel Industry

“…Numerous R&D programs and projects have been carried out over the last 10-15 years or are on-going. The European ULCOS program, COURSE50 in Japan, the POSCO program in Korea, the Australian CO 2 Breakthrough Program (CO2BTP, ISP), and the AISI CO 2 Breakthrough Program in North America as renowned examples [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. In addition, comparable projects have been reported in China, India, and Taiwan [13,17,[31][32][33][34].…”

“…Acronyms are explained in the text. Outlined based on literature data[21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40].…”

Yttria-Stabilized Zirconia Aided Electrochemical Investigation on Ferric Ions in Mixed Molten Calcium and Sodium Chlorides

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] Aiming to drastically reduce CO2 emissions, Europe has set up an ultra-low CO2 steelmaking (ULCOS) program which includes electrolytic reduction in molten salts. [10,11] Molten oxide electrolysis (MOE, ca. 1873 K) was proposed for production of liquid iron in the United States.…”