'Green steel': Swedish company ships first batch made without using coal:
The world's first customer delivery of "green steel" produced without using coal is taking place in Sweden, according to its manufacturer.
The Swedish venture Hybrit said it was delivering the steel to truck-maker Volvo AB as a trial run before full commercial production in 2026. Volvo has said it will start production in 2021 of prototype vehicles and components from the green steel.
Steel production using coal accounts for around 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Hybrit started test operations at its pilot plant for green free steel in Lulea, northern Sweden, a year ago. It aims to replace coking coal, traditionally needed for ore-based steel making, with renewable electricity and hydrogen. Hydrogen is a key part of the EU's plan to reach net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
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A cutting-edge U.S. Steel mill in Arkansas is using AI tools in production, but implementing that tech know-how in century-old plants hasn't been easy:
At a U.S. Steel Corp. mill on the Mississippi River, an automated crane lifts and lowers 1,000-degree hot steel coils into open squares, using a machine-learning algorithm to calculate the optimal spot for each coil to quickly cool down before it is shipped off.
This automated steel-coil yard, laid out like a giant chess board, is one of many advanced-technology operations at Big River Steel, a six-year-old plant in Osceola, Ark., that was built with the goal of harnessing cutting-edge tech to save energy, time and money.
When U.S. Steel took full ownership of Big River last year, it also gained the plant's artificial intelligence know-how and was a signal of the 120-year-old manufacturing giant's commitment to advancing technology in its mills. But implementing the type of technology in use at Big River in the steelmaker's other mills, some of which are over 100 years old, has proven a difficult task, according to the company's chief information officer.
[...] U.S. Steel recently began offering digital training to non-IT employees, including machine operators who spend their time on the ground in the mill. Mr. Holliday said U.S. Steel is on track to meet its goal of having 100 employees trained as "digital agents" by the end of 2022.
Related: 'Green Steel': Swedish Company Ships First Batch Made Without Using Coal
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @08:44AM (10 children)
I knew that coal is important in 2 ways: (1) heat everything and (2) mix the iron with some carbon atoms --- the more carbon gets added, the harder (and the more brittle) the resulting substance (various versions of cast iron).
So I assume here they're just talking about part (1). Provided link does not mention anything about (2), nor provide a link to a press release or anything, so I've no idea where they get their carbon atoms for (2).
(Score: 2) by quietus on Friday August 20 2021, @09:12AM
Ah -- but you're doing things in reverse: instead of not reading the article, you just skimmed the writeup and missed its last para.
To put things in context: all the important European heavy industry players (as well as South-Korean, Japanese and at least one Australian steel producer) are deploying hydrogen [energypost.eu] projects, along with carbon capture and storage projects.
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Friday August 20 2021, @09:43AM (1 child)
The most energy-intensive role of the carbon is (3) the reduction of iron oxides in the ore to iron.
Do the reduction with carbon and you get CO2 (and iron)
Do it with hydrogen and you get H2O leaving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @10:36AM
thank you. I never bothered that much with chemistry because there were too many details to remember. now and then the stupidity shows...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday August 20 2021, @02:33PM (3 children)
Carbon that ends up in the steel is not likely to enter the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. Not unless the steel gets melted down again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @04:14PM
And the steel WILL get melted down again. Steel is the most recycled material on earth.
(Score: 2) by number11 on Friday August 20 2021, @05:25PM (1 child)
Melting steel down won't release the carbon, that will remain mixed with the iron. To get carbon out, you've got to do things like introduce oxygen, which will combine with the carbon to form CO. Some carbon might be removed as part of the slag that forms, but that will be solids, not gas.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday August 23 2021, @01:01AM
I meant of course, melted down again in the presence of air. Even then, it's only carbon that convects to the surface that would burn.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Friday August 20 2021, @03:01PM (1 child)
WRT #2 Spathic/siderite iron ores come with their own carbon "for free" being iron carbonates. They are annoying to mine and not entirely compatible with existing steel processes so they get ignored. They're generally pretty low phosphorus, like zero P. Like many things there's an ideal level of P and too much or too little makes shit steel. Anyway maybe the "big picture long term" effect of greenwashed steel might be more interest in mining Spathic iron ore.
Usually your smelting stage has some limestone tossed in. Limestone being calcium carbonate. Generally the limestone gets baked into lime blowing the carbon dioxide off as a waste gas, but I suppose in theory you could recycle the co2 into the steel as a C source. I'm sure "your typical iron ore" is shitty enough to require more than a couple percent of limestone flux. The baked lime eats silicon dioxide "aka generic sand contaminant" and turns into glassy calcium silicate liquid thats easily separated off (like layer of oil and water, but white hot steel and liquid glass). Interestingly that silicate waste makes an interesting asbestos replacement AND anti-caking agent in your table salt... Just like P or any other alloying atom, a little Si makes awesomely better castings, but you can't have like 10% Si steel so sometimes you need the limestone...
Thats chemistry for you, start talking about greenwashing steel and next thing you know talking about table salt. But TLDR in summary there's no lack of carbon atoms floating around a steel mill I'm sure they'll find a source even with a coke-less process.
You talk to old timers or people who read old books LOL and they think average iron concentration in ore is still like 50% in the USA. Heck I remember doing quantitative analysis in chemistry class on ores like that in the 90s. But the US is running out of the good stuff and the average iron content is like 15% now since the turn of the century. Of course there's this power law thing much like coal, where theres like 1 unit of the best stuff, 10 units of crappier stuff, and 1000 units of "you gotta be kidding me but technically we can melt it..." stuff. So we're not running out of iron ore any time soon, but we are completely done with the high grade stuff. Supposedly theres like one mine left in south america thats still producing iron ore over 70% iron content but that sounds BS to me. The decline of quality iron ore is something people VERY carefully avoid discussing in mass media WRT the collapse of the US steel industry around the 70s. Questioning that might result in asking questions about hubberts peak and we can't have free thinking like that in the USA. Now everyone wear a kippah mask and watch the singing show and the sportsball show on the TV and don't ask no questions about nothing just vote "D" every time (or they'll throw out your ballot before counting it)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @11:43PM
I always enjoy reading when your write about your field.
However, I wasn't certain which questions I was supposed to ask about Hubbert's peak.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @03:18PM
The smelting process is mostly about removing non-iron contaminants from the ore. Various substances are added and reacted with the ore, which creates by-products that are then separated out of the ore, leaving it closer to pure iron than it was to begin with.
Depending on the composition of the ore, different processes are used to remove different contaminants. Coke is added to ore to react with oxygen and create carbon dioxide, which gasses off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @12:42PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_reduced_iron [wikipedia.org]
It becomes cost-efficient if you don't have a cheap supply of coking coal.
Now, a Swedish venture trying to compete with established Indian producers on an open market...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @12:44PM (1 child)
- from the "PR departments don't understand what they're writing about dept". Like usual.
Sounds like their editor needs an editor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @01:58PM
So a 'meditor' then..?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @04:57PM
...so not by coal-powered locomotive then.
(Score: 1) by YeaWhatevs on Friday August 20 2021, @05:26PM (1 child)
I don't want to be too cynical, but is it that the steam-cracked methane plant piping in hydrogen is just not counted, or are they using solar based electricity to split water?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 20 2021, @07:43PM
Hydro and wind for electricity that's then used to do the electrolysis(as well as the rest of the steel making process)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Saturday August 21 2021, @09:33AM
For a long time, Swedish steel and iron was considered to be superior. The reason was that it was smelted with charcoal (from wood) rather than coal. Coal introduces some impurities, like alt-right propaganda and sulpher and stuff. But the reason for British steel being so contaminated was that they had already cut down all their Oak forests for charcoal, and were force to switch to coal. Long history. So now, Swedish steel comes back, but now because Swedes are more advanced than the Brits? Karma, peoples!