Development and progress on hydrogen metallurgy

• Published in: International journal of minerals, metallurgy and materials Vol. 27; no. 6; pp. 713 - 723
• Main Authors: Tang, Jue, Chu, Man-sheng, Li, Feng, Feng, Cong, Liu, Zheng-gen, Zhou, Yu-sheng
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Beijing University of Science and Technology Beijing 01.06.2020; Springer Nature B.V; School of Ferrous Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China%State Key Laboratory of Rolling and Automation, Northeastern University, Shenyang 110819, China
• Subjects: Carbon dioxide; Carbon dioxide emissions; Ceramics; Characterization and Evaluation of Materials; Chemistry and Materials Science; Coal gasification; Composites; Corrosion and Coatings; Direct reduced iron; Electric furnaces; Energy consumption; Furnaces; Glass; Hydrogen; Hydrogen production; Hydrogen reduction; Invited Review; Iron and steel industry; Ironmaking; Liquid metals; Materials Science; Metallic Materials; Metallurgy; Natural Materials; Scrap iron; Shaft furnaces; Steel converters; Steel industry; Steel making; Steel scrap; Surfaces and Interfaces; Sustainable development; Thin Films; Tribology; United States > US; China; hydrogen metallurgy; hydrogen; blast furnace; shaft furnace; low carbon
• DOI: 10.1007/s12613-020-2021-4
• ISSN: 1674-4799

Hydrogen metallurgy is a technology that applies hydrogen instead of carbon as a reduction agent to reduce CO 2 emission, and the use of hydrogen is beneficial to promoting the sustainable development of the steel industry. Hydrogen metallurgy has numerous applications, such as H 2 reduction ironmaking in Japan, ULCORED and hydrogen-based steelmaking in Europe; hydrogen flash ironmaking technology in the US; HYBRIT in the Nordics; Midrex H 2 ™ by Midrex Technologies, Inc. (United States); H 2 FUTURE by Voestalpine (Austria); and SAL-COS by Salzgitter AG (Germany). Hydrogen-rich blast furnaces (BFs) with COG injection are common in China. Running BFs have been industrially tested by AnSteel, XuSteel, and BenSteel. In a currently under construction pilot plant of a coal gasification-gas-based shaft furnace with an annual output of 10000 t direct reduction iron (DRI), a reducing gas composed of 57vol% H 2 and 38vol% CO is prepared via the Ende method. The life cycle of the coal gasification—gas-based shaft furnace—electric furnace short process (30wt% DRI + 70wt% scrap) is assessed with 1 t of molten steel as a functional unit. This plant has a total energy consumption per ton of steel of 263.67 kg standard coal and a CO 2 emission per ton of steel of 829.89 kg, which are superior to those of a traditional BF converter process. Considering domestic materials and fuels, hydrogen production and storage, and hydrogen reduction characteristics, we believe that a hydrogen-rich shaft furnace will be suitable in China. Hydrogen production and storage with an economic and large-scale industrialization will promote the further development of a full hydrogen shaft furnace.