Let's Get Carbon-Smart

Innovations are inevitable for the global steel industry to ride over the myriad challenges that the worldwide environmental crisis has thrown up. And almost all the ground-breaking innovations in steel technology have been geared towards confronting and mitigating the carbon challenge. The singular objective of disruptive technologies is to become, what has been aptly termed as “carbon smart”, by not just replacing fossil sources with natural gases for metals production but also recycling fossils and wastes to produce useful products at an industrial scale, thereby providing a huge fillip to the global circular economy. Steel360 turns the spotlight on three “green” technologies that are setting new benchmarks in the industry.

- Nirmalya Deb

The “reduce, reuse, recycle” philosophy lies at the core of all disruptive steel technologies. Being 100% recyclable, steel is one of the central pillars of the global circular economy. Today wealth is being generated from the by-products of industrial processes, whether through the beneficiation of steel slag, steel mill wastes or gases emitted during production. So when experts are racking their brains, trying to find out strategies to reduce the global steel industry's fossil footprint, technologies that reuse carbon-rich gases to produce highly useful industrial products are attracting considerable attention and investments.

Green Fuel

In a path-breaking initiative to ensure optimal energy efficiency in steel production and reduce carbon emissions, steel behemoth ArcelorMittal has commenced construction of new premises at its site in the port of Ghent, Belgium, to house a pioneering new installation which will convert carbon containing gases from blast furnaces (BFs) into bioethanol.

The technology has the potential to revolutionise BF carbon emissions capture and support the decarbonisation of the transport sector. LanzaTech, a Chicago-based company, has patented the pioneering carbon capture and reuse technology that recycles carbon-rich waste gases (containing carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, and/or hydrogen) into high-quality, useful everyday products such as fuel ethanol, jet fuel or chemicals used for production of nylons and plastics.

LanzaTech's proprietary microbes feed on carbon monoxide to secrete bio-ethanol used primarily as transport fuel. The Ghent facility is the first installation of its kind on an industrial scale in Europe and, once completed, annual production of bio-ethanol is expected to reach around 80 million litres, which will yield an annual CO2 saving that is equivalent to putting 100,000 electrical cars on the road.