Monday 31 October 2022
ArcelorMittal, Mitsubishi and BHP to trial carbon capture in steelmaking
ArcelorMittal, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering (MHIENG) and BHP have joined forces to collaborate on a multi-year trial of carbon capture technologies in the steel industry.
They have signed an agreement which involves a trial at ArcelorMittal's steel plant in Gent, Belgium and another site in North America, bringing together various expertise in identifying ways to enhance carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies in steelmaking.
Estimates from the International Energy Agency (IEA) suggest CCUS technology needs to apply to more than 53% of primary steel production by 2050 for the net zero emissions scenario.
MHIENG will supply its proprietary technology and support the engineering studies and BHP and Mitsubishi Development, as key suppliers of steelmaking raw materials to ArcelorMittal's European operations, will fund the trial.
The first phase of the trial in Gent will involve separating and capturing the CO2 top gas from the blast furnace at a rate of around 300kg of CO2 a day.
The second phase will involve testing the separation and capture of CO2 from the offgases in the hot strip mill reheating furnace, which burns a mixture of industrial gases including coke gas, blast furnace gases and natural gas.
In addition, the companies plan to install the mobile test unit in one of ArcelorMittal's North American Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) plants to test MHIENG's technology in this steelmaking process.
Manfred Van Vlierberghe, ArcelorMittal Belgium’s Chief Executive Officer said: “The decarbonisation of the steel industry is a huge challenge that we cannot solve alone: it is through pan-industry partnerships and collaboration that we will achieve ArcelorMittal’s climate goals of reducing CO2 emissions by 35% by 2030 in Europe and by 30% by 2030 worldwide.
“Alongside our continued energy efficiency improvements, we are developing two routes to decarbonise steelmaking: Smart Carbon and Innovative-DRI. Both routes will contribute in our journey to deliver carbon-neutral steelmaking.
"The Smart Carbon route also allows us to integrate carbon capture and re-use (CCU) or storage (CCS) technologies, capturing carbon emitted during the steelmaking process. We are therefore proud to be working with BHP, Mitsubishi Development and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Engineering on this pioneering Carbon Capturing pilot project, in ArcelorMittal Gent.”
