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

The iron and steel industry is a source of industrial CO2 emissions. The BF-BOF route of iron and steel making is considered as the most successful and economic route, hence widely employed for the iron and steel production. To comply with the targets set by the latest “conference of the parties” (COP) for climate change significant additional effort is required to achieve the target CO2 emission reduction for the steel plants in Europe. Paul Wurth is employing intensive research and development work in order to assure that the BF-BOF route will be compatible with future environmental and economic environment. In this paper a range of innovative solutions are analysed. The approach followed is a stepwise retrofit based allowing to stretch the required investment over the time according to the effective calendar which will be set by governmental authorities for the CO2 emissions trade and cap system. The steps include a more efficient utilization of input carbon to the steel works for the purpose of saving of iron reductant, consideration of reducing agents having a lower CO2 emission factor, reutilisation of gases for metallurgical purposes, as well as new approaches for substitution of fuel with renewable electrical power. The current study estimates the technical and economic potential of energy saving and CO2 emission reduction for each step and demonstrates that the BF-BOF route can significantly and effectively contribute to meet the CO2 reduction targets.