When discussing carbon neutrality, Geert Van Poelvoorde, CEO of ArcelorMittal Europe, warns against too narrow a focus on green hydrogen. He says a broad portfolio of technical options, which could be utilised singly or in combination, is necessary to decarbonise the steel industry.
Across the globe, steel producers are searching for a transformative path to climate neutrality that is right for them individually. This does not mean there can be only one solution which uses renewable electricity and green hydrogen, as Geert Van Poelvoorde, CEO of ArcelorMittal Europe, emphasised at the conference “Zukunft Stahl” [the future of steel] organised by the commerce newspaper Handelsblatt: “There is no single solution for carbon-free steel production; what we need is a broad portfolio of technical options which can be used singly or in combination.” As an example, the steel manager cited direct reduction in combination with the separation and storage of carbon dioxide (carbon capture and storage, CCS). CCS, he said, was also an option used in combination with natural gas in order to reach a net zero goal. However, CCS would still pose some challenges. On the one hand, he mentioned the high costs for separation and cleansing of the gas and on the other, the necessary ecosystem from transport to storage, which still needs to be developed. He also said that regulation still needed to be finalised.
In general, to decarbonise the steel industry, Van Poelvoorde sees four promising transformative paths at different levels of technological and economic maturity. The easiest way: Keeping steel in circulation and using more scrap metal in processes. This is practised worldwide in producing electric steel, but the available secondary material isn’t enough to satisfy the global demand for steel. The production process, however, can be further optimised. According to Van Poelvoorde, improving the sorting of scrap metal and separation technology is necessary in order to utilise low quality scrap that is heavily contaminated.
The most well-known transformation path involves replacing the carbon-based furnace route with direct reduction using natural gas and/or hydrogen to produce directly reduced iron (DRI) in combination with an electric arc furnace (EAF).
The ArcelorMittal manager sees another option for decarbonisation in “intelligent steel production using carbon”. There are several different methods for this. Stainless steel producer Outokumpu keeps carbon in circulation at the Finnish site Tornio by using a pelletising plant for biocoke which replaces fossil coke with sustainable raw materials from biomass. ArcelorMittal itself is testing two other processes. The purpose of the 3D project in Dunkirk is to test a new form of carbon separation and utilisation or storage at an industrial scale. At the site in Gent, ArcelorMittal made headlines last year with the project Steelanol. In this first European project for carbon capture and utilisation (CCU) in cooperation with LanzaTech, ERM and Primetals, a system installed at a furnace biologically transforms the carbon-rich fumes into ethanol.
Still very much in the future, but something that Van Poelvoorde places great stock in, is electrolytic steel production. This process uses electrolysis to produce pure iron using electricity by separating iron oxide into its components iron and oxygen. At ArcelorMittal the opinion is that direct electrolytic reduction of iron ore can become an attractive process as soon as affordable clean electricity is available in abundance. ArcelorMittal is involved in the research project Siderwin, which has been studying direct electrolysis at an industrial scale in a pilot plant in Maizières-lès-Metz in France since 2017.
