November 2022 Volume 4

MATERIALS

program is seeking proposals that focus “on advancements that enable decarbonization in ore-based or scrap-based iron and steelmaking operations, and that convert other existing iron and steelmaking ancillary and thermal processes to use clean fuels or electricity.” International Activities In December of 2015, 196 parties adopted The Paris Agreement, which is a legally binding international treaty on climate change that went into effect on 4 November 2016. It is an encompassing agreement because it was the first to bring so many nations into a common goal of capping, then reducing, global warming. Signatories of the accords are attempting to reach the peak of GHG emissions as quickly as possible and achieve a “climate neutral” world by mid-century. In support of these goals, there is a lot of global investment being made to achieve net-zero emissions and H2 green steel’s process can be summarized in the following steps: • Giga-scale electrolysis will be used to decompose water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity. This will be an integrated part of the plant, using fossil-free electricity to produce the hydrogen needed to ramp up to full production by 2030. • The DR reactor refines iron ore to direct-reduced iron (DRI) by exposing iron ore to hydrogen, which reacts with oxygen in the ore to form steam. Using green hydrogen produced in our electrolysis for reduction (instead of coal typically used in integrated steel plants), enables reduction in CO2 emissions from the reduction process by up to 95 percent. Most of the DRI then goes to the electric arc furnace (EAF). • The Electric Arc Furnace is the first step in the electric melt shop. In the EAF, fossil-free electricity will be used to heat a combination of DRI and steel scrap to a homogenous melt of liquid steel. Carbon is added to lower electricity consumption, forming protective properties of the slag on top of the melt and enabling the transformation of iron to steel. From the EAF, the melt is transferred to the ladle furnace and RH degasser, where alloys are added to the melt to refine chemistries. • Continuous casting and rolling takes the liquid steel and converts it to rolled coils. The integrated process enables us to reduce energy consumption by 70 percent and replace natural gas used in the traditional process. The steel strip is wound into a “hot roll coil,” which is the initial product of the green steel facility. • Downstream finishing will be applied to some hot rolled coils on fully electrified downstream finishing lines. Depending on customer requirements, the products undergo various treatments including cold rolling to change thickness, annealing to create the right mechanical properties and hot dip galvanization to reach the desired corrosion resistance. The finished steel is then packaged to be shipped to customers.

sustainability. One case in point is ArcelorMittal, which last year announced that it would invest about $1.2 billion in decarbonization technologies at its Asturias plant in Gijón, Spain. The project will reduce CO2 emissions there by up to 4.8 million metric tons, or about 50 percent of emissions, within the next five years. At the heart of the plan is a 2.3 million-metric-ton green-hydrogen direct reduced iron (DRI) unit, complemented by a 1.1 million-metric-ton hybrid electric-arc furnace (EAF). This starts the transition of the Gijón plant away from the blast-furnace and basic-oxygen-furnace steelmaking and toward the DRI-EAF production, which carries a far lower carbon footprint. Eventually, green hydrogen will be used to reduce the iron ore in the DRI, and the EAF will be powered by renewable electricity. In North America, ArcelorMittal recently broke ground on its decarbonization project at the ArcelorMittal Dofasco plant in Mark Bula and his co-workers are understandably proud of their pioneering, near-zero carbon steelmaking project a few miles shy of the Arctic Circle. Their proof-of-concept is no pilot plant. Rather, it is a hard-hitting €4 billion commitment to our planet that bears watching as it develops.

Architectural rendering of the new Boden plant nestled into its surrounding landscape. Courtesy H2 green steel.

Among the adults who broke ground for the Boden plant, children were present to help, symbolizing the future of steelmaking and sustainability. Courtesy H2 green steel.

FIA MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER 2022 41