Development of Environmental Technology for Steelmaking Process

The steel industry emits more CO₂ than any other industry in Japan's industrial sector. In particular, manufacturing steel using the blast-furnace method results in high emissions, so drastic reductions in CO₂ emissions are needed as a global warming countermeasure. In global terms, Japan's steel manufacturing technology is already state-of-the-art, and Japan already conserves as much energy as possible by utilizing waste heat and by-product gases. Therefore, to achieve reduced CO₂ emissions on a global scale, it is necessary to develop innovative steel manufacturing technologies.

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  Development of Environmental Technology for the Steelmaking Process

Research and development item 1. Development of hydrogen reduction and other technologies (phase II - step 1) (starting in FY2018)

This item involves the development of technologies for reducing iron ore by amplifying the hydrogen included in the high-temperature coke oven gas (COG) generated during coking and using it as a partial substitute for coke. This item also involves the development of innovative CO₂ separation and recovery technologies that utilize the unused waste heat of steel mills to separate CO₂ from blast furnace gas (BFG).

During phase II - step 1, a 12-m3 scale test blast furnace and an actual blast furnace will be used for partial verification, and then a numerical analysis model will be utilized to perform scaled-up verification of a hydrogen reduction-utilizing blast furnace. In addition, to reduce the costs of CO₂ separation and recovery and utilize unused waste heat, verification of its practical application will be performed. Technology that makes it possible to ultimately reduce the CO₂ emissions of steel mills by approximately 30% compared to the current level will also be developed.

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  Test blast furnace (Kimitsu Steel Works)

Research and development item 2. Development of ferrocoke-utilization process technologies (starting in FY2017)

This item involves developing and demonstrating energy-conservation technology that makes it possible to reduce the amount of coke put into a blast furnace by utilizing the catalytic effects of metallic iron included in ferrocoke—which is generated as a result of the mixed hybrid molding and dry distillation of thermal coal and low-grade iron ore during the pig-iron manufacturing process that makes up part of the steel manufacturing process—to dramatically increase the blast furnace reduction efficiency.

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  Ferrocoke