Point-source carbon capture in the steel industry

The steel industry is one of the world’s largest emitters of carbon dioxide, accounting for roughly 8% of global emissions in 2018, or 1.85 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel produced. Clearly, the industry needs to reduce its emissions as soon as possible in order to contribute to the UN’s goal of carbon neutrality by 2050 and the 2015 Paris Agreement. With the global shift towards decarbonisation and the financial ~things government decree like carbon tax~ incentives posed by governments, the steel industry could lose around 14% of steel companies’ potential value if they do not decrease their environmental impact. 

There are currently a variety of decarbonisation strategies that have potential within the steel industry including BF/BOF efficiency programmes, biomass reductants, optimising DRI and EAF, and carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS). CCUS is relatively new to the steel industry, but point source carbon capture is becoming an increasingly feasible option for decarbonising steel. Point source carbon capture infrastructure can be attached to the blast furnace flue gas ~thing that emits gas~ to remove CO2 from the process when its concentration is at its highest.  This method of CCUS is designed to be attached to an industrial site’s flue emissions and prevent carbon being released into the atmosphere, so it is a logical choice for decarbonising the steel industry. With the right development and understanding of how to integrate the two sectors, point-source capture has the potential to rapidly accelerate steel’s path to carbon neutrality. 

Currently there are few small-scale CCUS facilities integrated within blast furnace steel making sites, however this is changing with the announcement of an agreement between ArcelorMittal, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering, BHP and Mitsubishi Development to trial MHIENG’s carbon capture technology on ArcelorMittal’s steel plant, the world’s leading steel producers. The technology will capture carbon-heavy process gases from the blast furnace and convert them to ethanol which can then be utilised. The trial will take place over several years and should kickstart a significant increase in the deployment of point-source carbon capture within the steel industry. 

Carbon capture is urgently needed for the reduction of emissions from steel blast furnaces and has potential to be a key technology. The International Energy Agency has estimated that CCUS needs to be integrated into over 53% of primary steel production by 2050 in order to reach net-zero, so development and deployment needs to happen globally and it needs to happen now.