Japan's steel industry is actively promoting a low-carbon transition through hydrogen metallurgy innovation

On March 13, at the 15th China-Japan Iron and Steel Industry Environmental Protection and Energy Conservation Expert Exchange Conference, Hideki Murakami, executive consultant of Nippon Steel and technical advisor of the Japan Hydrogen Ironmaking Foundation Industry Alliance (GREINS Project), said in the report of "Technical Challenges for the Carbon Neutral Transformation of Japan's Iron andSteel Industry" that the current Japanese steel industry is promoting industry transformation through technological innovation such as hydrogen metallurgy, and the COURSE50 project funded by the Japan New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and GREINS ( The steelmaking green innovation project is gradually developing into the driving force of this transformation. He said that taking 2022 data as an example, Japan, as the world's fifth largest carbon dioxide emitter, accounts for about 3% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, and the carbon dioxide emissions of the Japanese steel industry account for 14% of its total emissions. Under the goal of carbon neutrality, the Japanese steel industry is actively developing hydrogen reduction ironmaking technology to help achieve the carbon reduction goal of the whole of Japan. In this context, Hideki Murakami introduced that the COURSE50 project was launched in 2008 with the aim of developing hydrogen reduction technology that can be applied in blast furnaces.

In 2017, the project proved for the first time in the pilot blast furnace that the use of hydrogen reduction technology can reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced in the blast furnace smelting process by more than 10%, and based on the technical experience accumulated in the COURSE50 project, the GREINS project was officially launched in 2021. This can be said to be a hydrogen energy utilization project in the Steel Manufacturing process, or a multi-track technology development project, involving the blast furnace process, the direct reduction process, the electric arc furnace process, and the electric melting furnace process was added last year. The project is organized by the Japan Hydrogen Ironmaking Foundation Industry Alliance, which consists of Nippon Steel, JFE Steel, Kobe Steel, and the Metal Materials Research and Development Center (RCM), and conducts joint research with 14 research institutes, including Hokkaido University, Chuo Electric Power Research Institute, and Waseda University. Although the production process of direct reduced iron from natural gas is widespread, high-grade iron ore is still required. Given the limited resources of high-grade iron ore used as direct reduced iron, the efficient use of low-grade iron ore will remain extremely critical in the future development of the steel industry, and the current production of high-end steel through electric arc furnaces also faces difficulties such as limited energy.

In Asia, where the blast furnace one-converter route is dominant, it is necessary to develop carbon reduction technologies that can be applied to blast furnaces. He said. In the GREINS project, Nippon Steel is engaged in the development of the blast furnace and converter combined ironmaking process and the direct reduction electric arc furnace and electric melting furnace process. According to Hideki Murakami, the main research and development content of the GREINS project includes two major aspects: the development of hydrogen reduction technology in blast furnaces and the development of hydrogen direct reduction technology for reducing low-grade iron ore. The former includes the development of hydrogen reduction technology using hydrogen inside steel mills (COURSE50 direct use of hydrogen from blast furnaces) and the development of low-carbon technologies using hydrogen from outside steel mills and carbon dioxide from blast furnace gas (involving direct hydrogen use from super COURSE50 blast furnaces and indirect hydrogen use from carbon recovery blast furnaces)The latter includes the development of hydrogen direct reduction technology (involving the direct use of hydrogen in hydrogen direct injection shaft furnaces and the indirect use of hydrogen in carbon recovery shaft furnaces), as well as the development of electric arc furnaces for the production of high-end steel and electric melting furnaces for the production of molten iron.

Focusing on the development of hydrogen reduction technology in blast furnaces, COURSE50 and SuperCOURSE50 are the focus. According to Hideki Murakami, COURSE50 project involves two parts: carbon dioxide capture and emission reduction. One is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 20% by capturing carbon dioxide in blast furnace gas; The second is to partially replace coke with hydrogen in the blast furnace, reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 10%. In 2020, the project conducted a hydrogen injection test at room temperature and achieved a 16% reduction in CO2 emissions in a 12-cubic-meter COURSE50 test blast furnace, and next, Nippon Steel will introduce hydrogen-rich gas injection equipment in the No. 2 blast furnace at the Kimitsu Plant, and is expected to start large-scale actual blast furnace injection tests in FY2026. At the same time, Nippon Steel will also COURSE50 achieve carbon neutrality by maximizing the injection of hydrogen from the outside at a higher temperature than the COURSE50 blast furnace at Nippon Steel's East Nippon Steel Works' Kimitsu area, known as the Super COURSE50 test blast furnace, and by combining it with CCS (carbon capture and storage) or CCUS (carbon capture, utilization, and storage). In addition, JFE Steel East Nippon Steel Works (Chiba Plant) is building a 150-cubic-meter carbon recovery blast furnace and will start trials in 2025.

In a blast furnace equipped with a carbon recovery system, the carbon dioxide in the blast furnace gas is converted to CH4 (methane) by a methanation reaction with external hydrogen; Part of the reducing agent is modified from coke, and the methane recovered from carbon is reused as a reducing agent, reducing carbon dioxide emissions from blast furnaces. Focusing on the development of hydrogen direct reduction technology for the reduction of low-grade iron ore, Nippon Steel will develop hydrogen direct reduction furnaces, electric arc furnaces, and electric melting furnaces to produce high-end steel from low-grade iron ore.

Hideki Murakami introduced that for the direct reduction of hydrogen using hydrogen, research shows that compared with ordinary blast furnaces, the technology of direct reduction of low-grade iron ore by hydrogen can achieve carbon dioxide emission reduction of 50% or more by 2030: for the indirect use of hydrogen carbon recovery direct reduction technology, Nippon Steel converts the carbon dioxide in the reduction furnace gas into methane through reaction with hydrogen, and the generated methane gas is used as a reducing agent; For electric arc furnaces used to produce high-end steel, relevant studies have verified that the large-scale electric arc furnace process (with a processing capacity of about 300 tons) uses hydrogen direct reduction technology to reduce iron in low-grade iron ore, and its purification technology can reach the same level as the blast furnace process (phosphorus content of 150 parts per million concentration or less, content of 40 parts per million concentration or less) by 2030: for electric melting furnaces used to produce molten iron, it has been verified that the use of low-grade iron ore can achieve efficient production with blast furnace processes, Comparable impurity control technology. Nippon Steel Engineering & Technology Co., Ltd. plans to build a pilot electric melting furnace to be tested in 2026. Hideki Murakami admits that there are still many challenges to fully achieve low-carbon emission steelmaking, including huge R&D investment, a stable and affordable supply of green hydrogen and green electricity, and the high cost of CCS and CCUS technology.
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