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The colourless, odourless gas is a key component in both fossil-fuel refinery processes and in ammonia production for the fertiliser industry. But the potential for it to help decarbonise other high-emitting processes is vast. So the question of whether we’ll have enough hydrogen to meet varied and growing industrial demand is an ever more pressing one.
Steel production accounts for 7% of all man-made greenhouse-gas emissions, making it one of the most polluting industries on the planet. The process energy and heat required to turn iron ore into steel primarily comes from coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. However, European steelmakers are increasingly interested in commercialising hydrogen-based steel production methods with vastly improved emissions profiles.
Replacing coal and gas
Steel can be produced through one of two processes. The first uses an integrated blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace to produce steel from iron ore and needs coal as a reductant. The second uses steel scrap or direct reduced iron (DRI) as the raw material to be processed in an electric arc furnace (EAF). Some 70% of steel produced worldwide today is made in blast furnaces, while 25% is made from scrap in EAFs. The remainlng 5% uses DRI in electric arc furnaces.
Either coal or gas is commonly used in the DRI manufacturing process, but these could be replaced with so-called “green” hydrogen (made using renewable energy) to lower the carbon footprint. In 2016, three Swedish companies, SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall, teamed up to form the Hybrit (hydrogen breakthrough ironmaking technology) initiative. Last June, the partners announced that they had created the world’s first hydrogen-reduced DRI, which has since been used to produce steel. The project hopes to demonstrate its technology in industrial-scale production by 2026.
BloombergNEF, a research provider, has predicted that by 2050 green hydrogen methods could be the cheapest way to produce steel and capture 31% of the global market. Doing so, however, will require the creation of more DRI plants and more electric furnaces. The shift to hydrogen would also require huge quantities of renewable energy (to ensure the hydrogen itself is clean) and a shift to higher grades of iron ore.
“The global steel industry is poised to begin a titanic pivot from coal to hydrogen,” predicts Kobad Bhavnagri, head of industrial decarbonisation at BloombergNEF. “Green hydrogen is the cheapest and most practical way to make green steel, once recycling levels are ramped up. This transition will cause both great disruption and great opportunity.”
The International Energy Agency has stated that in the next five to 10 years emissions reductions in steel can be most easily achieved by promoting energy efficiency in existing plants and processes. But in the longer term, the agency said that “breakthrough” technologies, such as green hydrogen, must be rolled out. Major industrial players are taking note.
BlueScope goes green
Australian steelmaker BlueScope is partnering with Shell to develop a green hydrogen facility at the Port Kembla Steelworks in New South Wales. Unlike the Hybrit project, BlueScope said it will aim to use the hydrogen in its blast furnace, as opposed to a DRI plant.
Steel production is a sector that has remained resilient to larger economic shocks in recent years. Maintaining production in a decarbonising world is going to be a challenge – but it’s one that hydrogen can play a role in meeting.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.