New trends in steel

The research and development of low carbon metallurgical technology has become an important direction of the world iron and steel industry. In recent years, the world’s major steel pipe supplier have made unremitting efforts and sustained investment in this regard. China is the world’s largest iron and steel producer; low carbon development task is urgent and arduous. In 2020, China’s crude steel output was 1.053 billion tons, accounting for more than 50% of global production. The steel industry is also a major carbon emitter in manufacturing, accounting for about 15 percent of the country’s total carbon dioxide emissions.

In the context of China’s commitment to “strive to peak carbon dioxide emissions before 2030 and strive to achieve carbon neutrality before 2060”, the traditional smelting process based on carbon metallurgy has been unable to adapt to the future development trend, and the development of the steel industry is facing great challenges. “Nurture new opportunities in a crisis and open new ones in a changing situation”. Since the beginning of this year, leading companies such as hollow section manufacturers in the industry have released carbon emission reduction targets and timetables. As one of the world’s largest steel material manufacturing and comprehensive service providers, Hesteel Group released in March 2021 “low-carbon green development action plan” : 2021 issued low-carbon metallurgy roadmap; Carbon peak in 2022; Reduce carbon emissions by more than 10% from their peak in 2025; Carbon emissions by more than 30% from their peak in 2030; Be carbon neutral by 2050. Under the guidance of this, Hesteel is accelerating the realization of low-carbon transformation by promoting carbon emission reduction in the whole process, building a diversified energy structure system, and providing green low carbon steel and iron materials for structural steel pipe.

From the change of energy structure to promote the iron and steel metallurgy process reform. According to the relevant planning of China Baowu, the low carbon metallurgy roadmap will be issued in 2021, and the carbon reduction capacity of mild steel tube will be 30% in 2025. Research and development and application of hydrogen base shaft furnace direct reduction process, production of sponge iron power furnace steelmaking. Expand short process low carbon steel iron smelting capacity, greatly reduce carbon dioxide emissions per ton of steel. This is the development focus of hydrogen metallurgy. At present, China’s steel industry is seeking low-carbon transformation and accelerating the research and development and reserve of major technologies. Not only leading enterprises actively play a leading role, some iron and steel enterprises have also established low-carbon metallurgy demonstration projects.