Development and progress on hydrogen metallurgy

Abstract

Hydrogen metallurgy is a technology that applies hydrogen instead of carbon as a reduction agent to reduce CO₂ emission, and the use of hydrogen is beneficial to promoting the sustainable development of the steel industry. Hydrogen metallurgy has numerous applications, such as H₂ reduction ironmaking in Japan, ULCORED and hydrogen-based steelmaking in Europe; hydrogen flash ironmaking technology in the US; HYBRIT in the Nordics; Midrex H₂™ by Midrex Technologies, Inc. (United States); H₂FUTURE by Voestalpine (Austria); and SAL-COS by Salzgitter AG (Germany). Hydrogen-rich blast furnaces (BFs) with COG injection are common in China. Running BFs have been industrially tested by AnSteel, XuSteel, and BenSteel. In a currently under construction pilot plant of a coal gasification-gas-based shaft furnace with an annual output of 10000 t direct reduction iron (DRI), a reducing gas composed of 57vol% H₂ and 38vol% CO is prepared via the Ende method. The life cycle of the coal gasification—gas-based shaft furnace—electric furnace short process (30wt% DRI + 70wt% scrap) is assessed with 1 t of molten steel as a functional unit. This plant has a total energy consumption per ton of steel of 263.67 kg standard coal and a CO₂ emission per ton of steel of 829.89 kg, which are superior to those of a traditional BF converter process. Considering domestic materials and fuels, hydrogen production and storage, and hydrogen reduction characteristics, we believe that a hydrogen-rich shaft furnace will be suitable in China. Hydrogen production and storage with an economic and large-scale industrialization will promote the further development of a full hydrogen shaft furnace.

Keywords

hydrogen / hydrogen metallurgy / blast furnace / shaft furnace / low carbon

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