NEDO to use hydrogen for decarbonising steelmaking
It will develop low-carbon technology using CO2 contained in external hydrogen and blast furnace exhaust gas.
New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) will launch a “hydrogen utilisation project in the steelmaking process” to decarbonise the steel industry.
The project is to be run as part of the Green Innovation Fund project with a total budget of 193.5 billion yen to reduce fossil fuel consumption from the entire ironmaking process. It will work on technology to use more hydrogen in blast furnaces and hydrogen reduction technology to use low-grade iron ore in direct reduction furnaces and reduce CO2 emissions by 2030.
NEDO has used hydrogen instead of coke to reduce iron ore, reduce CO2 emissions, and separate and recover CO2. It is on the verge of establishing a technology that can reduce CO2 emissions by 30% in demonstration tests in a test blast furnace. But to introduce the technology to domestic steelworks, verification in an actual blast furnace is necessary, and in addition, efforts to further reduce CO2 emissions from the blast furnace are indispensable for the realisation of carbon neutrality in 2050.
NEDO aims to develop technologies that reduce the amount of fossil fuels used in the entire ironmaking process and reduce CO2 emissions by 50% or more by 2030.
Based on the results of the “development of environment-friendly process technology/ development of process technology such as hydrogen reduction” in the test blast furnace, the actual blast furnace (5000m 3 class) will be remodelled, and a room temperature hydrogen gas blowing test will be conducted. It will verify changes in reaction conditions and CO2 reduction effects due to scale-up and develop technologies for introduction to domestic steelworks.
