8th International Congress on Science and Technology of Ironmaking - ICSTI 2018

Compared to the traditional Blast Furnace – Basic Oxygen Furnace way of producing steel, more than 50% of CO2 emissions can saved if steel is produced by means of the Energiron Direct Reduction – Electric Arc Furnace way. This target is achieved partly thanks to the use of reducing sources cleaner than coal, and partly thanks to the selective capture of up to 90% of the CO2 produced, that can be possibly commercialized as a valuable by-product for several different industries. The investment cost of a DR-EAF minimills is lower than the BF-BOF configuration, therefore in principle this is a sustainable solution to decrease CO2 emissions in the steel industry. Operating costs are competitive provided that the reducing agent is available at reasonable price: the Energiron process can use either natural gas, syngas and BF off-gas, whichever is locally available at the cheapest price. Further than this, even Hydrogen can be used as reducing gas, without any modification to the original Energiron process scheme. This allows further reductions in CO2 emissions, as many technologies are being developed to exploit renewable energy sources for production of Hydrogen, which is generally considered to be the fundamental element for the future global energy system.