HYDROGEN IN THE STEEL-INDUSTRY

Today-as in the past-iron ore is reduced by carbon from coal or charcoal for iron/steel fabrication. The ensuing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions at a rate of some 2.2 kg CO2 per kg of liquid steel for reduction are in the order of 10% of the world's anthropogenic CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuel. Iron/steel production being thus amongst the most intensive single CO2 polluter, hydrogen substituting carbon would have a large potential to reduce the greenhouse gas CO2 emissions. Hydrogen is an excellent and clean reductant emitting water vapour instead of CO2 and does not introduce extra impurities as coke does (sulphur in particular). If generated with relatively cheap and abundant hydropower, its application in steel fabrication might become competitive even in terms of direct operation costs. The penetration of hydrogen into the steel industry would be favoured by the fact that steel fabrication is rather centralized, the power per steel production plant being in the order of GW compared with, for instance, 100 kW per motor car, which eases the logistics of intervention of hydrogen in steel fabrication.