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JOURNAL OF IRON AND sTEEL RESEARCH. INTERNATIONAL. 2010. 17(3): 01-07

A Brief Overview of Low CO2 Emission Technologies for

Iron and Steel Making
Chunbao (Charles) XU' • CANG Da-qiang"
O. Department of Chemical Engineering. Lakehead University. Ontario P7B 5El. Canada; 2. School of
Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering. University of Science and Technology Beijing. Beijing 100083. China)

Abstract: The global steel production has been growing for the last 50 years. from 200Mt in 1950s to 1240Mt in
2006. Iron and steel making industry is one of the most energy-intensive industries. with an annual energy consump-
tion of about 24 EJ. 5 % of the world's total energy' consumption. The steel industry accounts for 3 %- 4 % of total
world greenhouse gas emissions. Enhancing energy efficiency and employing energy saving/recovering technologies
such as coke dry quechning (CDQ) and top pressure recovery turbine (TRT) can be short-term approaches to the
steel industry to reduce greenhouse gas emission. The long-term approaches to achieving a significant reduction in
CO 2 emissions from the steel industry would be through developing and applying CO 2 breakthrough technologies for
iron and steel making. and through increasing use of renewable energy for iron and steel making. Thus. an overview
of new CO 2 breakthrough technologies for iron and steel making was made.
Key words: greenhouse gas emission; CO 2 reduction technology; ironmaking , steelmaking

The global anthropogenic emission of COz was
about 29 Gt in 2007 and is projected to grow to 37 Gt
in 2020[1-2J. Energy and the environment have been
very critical problems for many countries in particu-
lar for some developing countries with fast growing
economy such as China which produced 5 % of 5.
"
world total GDP in 2006 at the cost of 15 %. of world
total energy consumption and about 14 % of the
world total COz emission (second only to that of the
US). To cope with these challenges. China, in its
11th Five-Year Planning Outline for National Eco-
nomic and Social Development. has set up two man-
datory targets , 20 % reduction of energy consump-
tion per unit GDP compared with that of 2005, and
abatement of the total volume of SOz emission by
10% by 2010.
The global steel production has been growing
rapidly for the past 10 years, from 752 Mt in 1995 to
1240 Mt in 2006, at a growth rate of about 5 % per
year, mostly owing to the fast increasing steel pro-
duction in China, currently the world No.1 steel
producer. Iron and steel making industry is one of
the most energy-intensive industries. with an annual
energy consumption of about 24 EJ (X 10 18 J). or
5 % of the wo~ld' s total energy consumption, China
produced 419 Mt of steel in 2006, at, the cost of
9. 8 EJ of energy, or 335 Mtce (million tonnes coal-
equivalent). 15 % of the nation' s total annual energy
consumption. The energy efficiency in the Chinese
steel industry, currently in the range of 710 -740 kg
of coal-equivalent for every ton crude steel Ckg-ce/
t ) , is much lower than that in most of the developed
countries (lower than 650 kg-ce/ t ) [3 J . Prod uction of
every ton of steel produces about 2200 kg of COz as
a world average (1800 kg of COz for many developed
countries )[IJ. According to the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, the steel industry accounts for
3 % - 4 % of total world greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result, to address the global warming and
climate change issues, it is strategically important
for the steel industry to greatly reduce 'its CO 2 emis-
sion. The short-term approaches for the steel indus-
try to reducing greenhouse gas emission can be en-
hancing energy efficiency, and employing energy

Foundation Item: Item Sponsored by Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) (326868-06)
Biography: Chunbao (Charles) XU0971-). Male. Doctor. Associate Professor, E-mail: cxu@lakeheadu.ca. Received Date: October 9. 20Q8
 • 2 Journal of Iron and Steel Research. International
saving/ recovering technologies such as coke dry
quenching (CDQ) and top pressure recovery turbine
(TRT), while more advanced long-term approaches
to a significant reduction in CO 2 emissions from the
steel industry should be sought. These include in-
creasing the use of renewable energy for iron and
steel making, and developing and applying CO 2
breakthrough technologies for iron and steel mak-
ing, such as CO 2 capture and storage (CCS) tech-
nology and its combination with pure oxygen top gas
recycled blast furnace (TGRBF), and new iron and
steelmaking processes that do not require the steps
of agglomeration and coking, etc.
1 Short-Term Approaches to CO2 Emission
Reduction in the Steel Industry
As mentioned above, enhancing energy efficien-
cy in iron and steel making processes can be an effec-
tive short-term approach for the steel industry to re-
ducing greenhouse gas emission. In fact, the steel
industry has made a significant reduction in its CO 2
emission since 1990 through improving energy effi-
ciency. The energy consumption in the steel sector
for the countries in North America, EU, and Japan
reduced to the extent of about 50 % compared to that
of 1975[IJ perhaps owing to the replacement of open
hearth furnaces (OHFs) with basic oxygen furnaces
(BOFs) that have a relatively low energy intensity
( O. 7 GJ /ton) compared to the 3. 9 GJ /ton for
OHFs. and the wide adoption of continuous casting
technologies. For example. the energy intensity for
the US steel industry dropped drastically by 65 %
from about 50 MBtu/t (or 1800 kg-celt> in 1975 to
about 17MBtu/t (612kg-ce/t) in 1990. and to ap-
proximately 13 MBtu/t (468 kg-ce/j ) in 2004[1]. On
May 7. 2007. the International Iron and Steel Insti-
tute (IISI) in Brussels challenged governments to
work with the steel industry to develop a new imagi-
native and global approach to climate change in the
post- Kyoto period. Almost at the same time, China
released its first Climate Change Plan in June 2007,
with commitment to enhance energy efficiency and to
require steel industry to adopt energy saving tech-
nologies like coke dry quenching (CDQ) and top
pressure recovery turbine (TRT) for the nation's
large BFs. The CDQ technology is beneficial since it
can recover approximately 400 - 500 kg steam per
ton of coke. equivalent to 800 - 1 200 MJ per ton of
cokel !] , For a modern blast furnace (BF) with pul-
verized coal! oil injection, consuming 350 kg of coke
Vol. 17
per metric tons of hot metal. the overall energy sav-
ing with CDQ could be approximately 10 - 14 kg of
coal equivalent per tons of crude steel, which may
hence lead to a reduction in CO 2 emission of 30-
40 kg per tons of crude steel. The TRT technology
has also been widely adopted by the steel industry
owing to its excellent operational reliability. For in-
stance, the TRT facilities are installed in all the
blast furnaces in Japan and Korea. Approximately.
electricity of 40 to 60 kWh per ton of pig iron can be
generated by TRT. At present, more than 8% of elec-
tricity, which is consumed in Japanese Integrated
Steel Works. is generated by TRT[ 4 J • This reduces
fossil fuel (such as coal) consumption of thermal
power plant. Assuming o. 5 kg of CO 2 emission per
kWh for a thermal power plant, the potential of
TRT for CO 2 abatement would be 20 - 30 kg of CO 2
per ton of crude steel. As such. the CO 2 reduction
potential for the CDQ and TRT technologies together
could be about 2%-3%.
Conventional processes following the route of
blast furnace (BF) Ibasic oxygen converter (BOF)
produce more than 65 % of the world total steel in
2006, compared with 32 % by electric arc furnace
(EAF) and less than 3 % by open hearth proces-
ses l 5] . In particular. 87 % of 422. 7 Mt steel pro-
duced in China in 2006 was produced by BOF and
13% of the steel was produced by EAF. In a typical
steel plant following the conventional route of BF I
BOF. the percentage of CO 2 emission (based on the
world average data) from each unit process is illus-
trated in Fig. 1l6 J • As clearly shown in Fig. 1. the
BF process (producing 69 % of the total CO 2 emis-
sion) is the dominant contributor to the CO 2 emis-
sion from the whole plant. The CO 2 emission of the
blast furnace is mainly due to the requirement of car-
bon in the reducing agents (coke. coal. etc. ). In
the past over 30 years since 1975. however. for
many developed countries such as Germany. the
consumption of the reducing agents remained almost
unchanged in a total amount of approximately 500-
550 kg per ton of hot metal (HM), Since the blast
furnace is a counter-current reactor. and the applica-
tion of both most modern equipment and mode of
operation has already decreased the required energy
and the energy losses. the potential for further re-
ducing the use of reductant and minimizing CO 2 emis-
sion is very limited. Thus. the conventional technol-
ogy for iron and steel making following the route of
BF IBOF has been developed to such a stage that sub-
Issue 3 A Brief Overview of Low CO, Emission Technologies for Iron and Steel Making
Fig. 1 CO2 emission from steel production using the
traditional blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace/ converter
stantial energy savings by improvements of the
processes become very unlikely-'".
2 CO2 Capture and Storage CCCS) Technology
As shown in Fig. 1, for a typical steel plant fol-
lowing the conventional route of BF /BOF, the BF
process is the dominant contributor to CO 2 emis-
sion. Blast furnace gas (BFG) normally contains
C0220%, C023%, H 23%, and N 254%. If the
CO 2 emitted from BF were captured and stored by
sequestration in reservoirs such as depleted oil and
gas reservoirs, deep aquifers or deep oceans, the to-
tal CO 2 emission from a steel plant could be signifi-
cantly reduced. The CCS technology has gained a
growing interest in recent decade owing to the global
concerns over greenhouse effects and climate change
and actually found application in the petroleum in-
dustry for CO 2-enhanced oil recoveryCS-9].
CO 2 capture is proven technologically and has
been under operation for natural gas and hydrogen
purification. Natural gas or oil fields are equipped
with the technology for the removal of CO 2 , either
for the separation of the CO 2 existing in the original
composition of the gas or for the removal of the CO 2
injected for enhanced oil recovery (EaR) to increase
the field performance. There are three main technol-
ogies that dominate the market: liquid chemical ab-
sorption, physical absorption, and solid adsorption
processes. The liquid chemical absorption process uses
monoethanolamine (MEA) or another alkanolamine
to remove CO 2 from the feed stream. CO 2 in natural
gas is absorbed by alkanolamine in a tower at tem-
peratures around 40 - 65 ·C, and then, the alkano-
lamine is regenerated at temperatures around 100-
120 ·C. Although the process is well-developed,
there are many problems associated with the corro-
sion owing to MEA and contaminants, and the high
• 3 •
operating costs owing to the great amount of energy
employed in solvent regeneration. The chemical ab-
sorption process has also been used for decades for
producing CO 2 from flue gas from power plants. For
CO 2 emission control in the steel industry, American
Iron and Steel Institute (AlSO and Korea have tested
the chemical absorption process for the removal of
CO 2 from BF gas. Physical absorption process em-
ploys glycols or other organic solvents, where the
interaction with CO 2 or any other acid gas is not as
strong as that with alkanolamines and where less en-
ergy is employed in regeneration. Solid adsorption
processes for the removal of CO 2 from natural gas
streams CI O] , or the removal of contaminant species
from hydrogen streams, are based on adsorbent ma-
terials with selective adsorption to different gas spe-
cies. Pressure swing adsorption (PSA) is one of the
most known industrial processes for gas separa-
tion Cll ] . The most common adsorbents are zeolite,
alumina, silica gel, and activated carbon'I'", PSA
process is the principal technology for hydrogen pur-
ification in use today.
After capture, the CO 2 needs to be sequestered
in a reservoir for an indefinite period, and it will not
reenter the atmosphere. Although CO 2 capture has
been proven technologically, CO 2 storage/ sequestra-
tion is still under development. The following reser-
voirs have been investigated for sequestering CO 2 :
depleted oil and gas reservoirs, deep oceans, and
deep aquifers. Oil and gas reservoirs are usually cov-
ered by an impenetrable layer of rock, so that the
deposited CO 2 would not re-emerge into the atmos-
phere. Injecting CO 2 into semi-depleted oil reser-
voirs is a well-established technology for enhanced
oil recovery (C02 - EaR). In the world (mainly in
the US and in North Sea), there are more than 70
oil fields where CO 2-EaR is usedl'", It has been es-
timated that the potential storage capacity of the
world's proven oil and gas fields can be about 140 Gt
of carbon, compared with an annual 'worldwide emission
of about 7 Gt of carbon. Thus, sequestering CO 2 in
depleted and semi-depleted oil and gas reservoirs can
playa role in mitigating global warming on a limited
scale. Owing to its' much greater CO 2 storage capacity,
sequestration of 'CO 2 in a deep ocean can be a more
promising solution. Beneath.about lOOO m in depth,
the layers of theocean are highly unsaturated in re-
gard to CO 2 , and, they are very stable 'with the "turn-
over" time on the order of hundreds to thousands of
years. The storage capacity of the deep ocean is esti-
 • 4 • Journal of Iron and Steel Research. International
mated on the order of 10 19 ton of carbon-'". The ma-
jor issue for sequestering CO 2 in deep oceans is the
costs. Laying large diameter pipes on the continental
shelf reaching 1000 m in depth is expensive, costing
s
about US ·1- 2 million per km length. Sequestra-
tion in deep aquifers, usually containing porous Ca
and Mg containing minerals immersed in saline wa-
ter, is also called mineral sequestration. It involves
the reactions of CO2 with these minerals to form geologi-
cally stable carbonates' J:j-Il]. Sponsored by the U. S.
Dept of Energy, a team of researchers from the Na-
tional Energy, Technology Laboratory, Albany Re-
search Center, the Los Alamos National Laboratory,
and Arizona .State University has started to investi-
gate and improve the carbonation process in
1998[11]. Research on CO 2 storage by mineralogical
fixation has been undertaken and is still ongoing in
many countries including China-'". In 1998, China
began its first CO 2 storage project for CO 2-EOR in
.the Liaohe oil field, one of China's largest oil fields
in the Bohai Basin[16].
3 Pure Oxygen Top Gas Recycled BF (TGRBF)
Combined With CCS Technology
Modern BF operation is very close to its theo-
retical limits since it approaches its physical limits
with respect to energy efficiency, although marginal
improvement may be made through increasing recy-
cling (such as increasing use of steel scrap), energy
saving or switching from coal to natural gas. CCS
technologies discussed above seems to be capable of
reducing the CO 2 emission from BF, but it was esti-
mated that the end-of-pipe CCS on main emitter (for
example, BF) can bring only 25% -30% reduction
in CO 2 emissions owing to very high energy con-
sumption for the CCS process itself. To address the
CO 2 reduction issue for modern BF operation, UL-
COS (Ultra Low CO 2 Steelmaking), a five-year Eu-
ropean Project, RFCS and 6FP, started in 2003 to
devise the breakthrough technologies that can drasti-
cally cut CO 2 emissions from steelmaking by a factor
of two or more. The project is funded with almost
€ 30 millions of funding by the EU's research pro-
grammes, including the Coal and Steel Research
Fund. The ULCOS project pools together the ef-
forts and talents of 48 partners Csteelmakers , com-
panies in the steel supply chain, research laborato-
ries, and universities). The breakthrough routes
Vol. 17
proposed in this project include 1) BF (coal) with
in-process CO 2 capture, 2) smelting reduction (coal)
with in-process CO 2 capture, 3) direct reduction
(natural gas) with in-process capture, and 4) use of
carbon-neutral and sustainable biomass. The, Euro-
pean Steel Technology Platform (ESTEP) has an-
nounced on February 27, 2008 in Brussels to launch
a second phase of the ULCOS research programme
(i, e. ULCOS- II) r 17]. ULCOS- II will set up several lar-
ger scale pilots to test the most promising medium/long-
term technologies on an industrial scale. Except
when carbon-lean electricity is massively available,
all breakthrough routes will need to be coupled with
carbon capture and storage. ULCOS- II will require
significant levels of investment-the first industrial-
scale demonstration is estimated at € 300 millions.
The first technology to be evaluated on an in-
dustrial scale will be pure oxygen top gas recycled
BF (TGRBF) combined with CCS technology, as il-
lustrated in Fig. 2[18]., By using pure oxygen instead
of air and the recycled CO 2-free BF gas, the
TGRBF-CCS can achieve 30% reduction in carbon
input. The net reduction in CO 2 for the CCS
process, taking into account the additional energy
consumption for the CCS process operation, would
be in a level of 20 % - 30 %. As such, an overall re-
duction of 50 % - 60 % in CO 2 emission may be ob-
tained through the TGRBF-CCS technology. Com-
parison of CO 2 emissions from the TGRBF-CCS
process based on various scenarios with the conven-
tional BF[18] shows that the capacity of CO 2 reduc-
tion is about 5% -10% for TGRBF alone, 25%-
30% for BF-CCS, 50%-60% for TGRBF-CCS, in
comparison with more than 80 % for TGRBF char-
coal (a carbon neutral fuel) -CCS. However, there
are some metallurgical challenges identified for this
exciting TGRBF-CCS technology, including how to
optimise coal injection in O 2 tuyeres and how to ob-
tain effective distribution of gas in BF hearth.
Fig.2 The TGRBF-CCS process
Issue 3 A Brief Overview of Low CO 2 Emission Technologies for Iron and Steel Making
4 New Iron and Steel Making Processes and
Their Potential for CO2 Reduction
4. 1 Direct reduction processes
The blast furnace process is still the predomi-
nant iron production process, producing more than
92 % of the world total iron. However, the inherent
disadvantages to the blast furna~e process include 1)
dependence on high-quality metallurgical-grade coke
and iron oxide feed stocks (pellets, sinters , bri-
quettes); 2) economic viability only at large capaci-
ties; 3) environmental constraints (C02 and SQ emis-
sions) on the coke ovens and sinter plants; 4) re-
quirement of auxiliary plants (e. g. , raw materials
handling and preparation systems, sinter plants,
coke ovens with strict environmental control sys-
tems, pellet hardening kilns); and 5) high capital
and operational intensity, etc. [19 J . These disadvan-
tages have led to the development of alternative
ironmaking processes such as the mini blast furnace
process, smelting reduction processes, and direct re-
duction processes. Direct reduction processes in-
clude reduction of iron oxides in the solid state, be-
low the fusion temperature of pure iron (1535'C),
utilizing CO/H 2/CH 4 gases and or carbon-bearing
materials as the reducing-carburizing agents, to pro-
duce direct-reduced iron (DRl) with a porous struc-
ture (often called sponge iron). Worldwide, direct-
reduction capacity via existing gas-based or coal-
based technologies is likely to increase in order to
support the expansion of EAF steelmaking for pro-
duction of new high-quality steel products. Another
important driving force for the development of di-
rect/ smelting reduction processes' is that, compared
with the BF process, direct/smelting reduction
processes are more environmentally friendly: they
do not require high-quality metallurgical-grade coke
and iron oxide feed stocks (pellets, sinters , bri-
quettes), but use are fines and fine coal directly,
which avoids the steps of agglomeration and coking,
with a potential of 20 % CO 2 decrease (as shown in
Fig. 1). In the past 5 to 10 years, there has been a
rapid increase in the production of iron via direct re-
duction processes'P", World production of DRI in-
creased to 59. 8 Mt in 2006, an increase of 7 % over
the 2005 figure of 56. 1 Mt. The world DRI produc-
tion is mainly in the countries of Venezuela, Iran,
Saudi Arabia, Mexico, South Africa, Egypt, Ar-
gentina, Qatar, and Canada.
• 5 •
The direct reduction processes can be grouped
into two main categories according to reducing agent
source used[21-22] : natural gas-based direct reduction
processes and coal-based direct reduction processes.
Currently, the primary DRI production processes
are the natural gas-based direct reduction processes
such as Midrex and Hyl using shaft furnace, and
Finmet using fluidized bed. An interesting develop-
ment is the two-stage hydrogen-based Circored
process using a circulating fluidized bed system to
reduce iron are fines[23J. The process uses pure hy-
drogen produced from natural gas via steam-refor-
ming and CO shift reactions, where the highly con-
centrated CO 2 by-product could be easily disposed by
sequestration; The Midrex reduction process using
natural gas and a shaft furnace led to world output
with 35. 7 Mt , or 60 % of the world total DRI. The
Midrex process has an energy consumption compara-
ble to the blast furnace at about 12 GJ for every ton
hot metal. Hyl processes produced 11 Mt, or 18 %
of the world total. The Finmet process using natural
gas and fluidized bed produced 2%, or 1. 3 Mt, The
remaining 20 %, i. e. , 11. 8 M t , was made in a variety
of coal-based processes involving rotary kiln/hearth.
In regions where an abundant and inexpensive source
of natural gas (orhydrogen) exists, gas-based direct
reduction of iron followed by melting in an EAF can
provide a cost-competitive alternative to quality steel
products. One of the constraints on the gas-based
shaft furnace processes is that they require either
high-grade lump are or pellets as their iron unit raw
material feed, while costs for such feeds are climb-
ing owing to limited supply. The lower costs of the
fine ores make the fluidized bed processes t attrac-
tive. However, in areas where low cost natural gas
is not available, coal-based iron reduction processes
will have an advantage. Several processes based up-
on the direct reaction of coal and iron are in a rotary
kiln, such as the SL/RN process (coal-based DRI
technology of Lurgi GmbH, Germany), reached va-
rious stages of development since the 1960s. Two
commercial coal-based Fastmet units operates a rotary
hearth furnace have been installed at Kobe Steel and
Nippon Steel, both in Japan, to produce 85 % of re-
duced iron pellets'<",
4. 2 Smelting reduction processes
Smelting reduction processes include reduction
of iron oxides and gasification of carbon-bearing rna-
terials (normally coal) in a liquid metal bath, at above
 • 6 • Journal of Iron and Steel Research. International
the fusion temperature of pure iron (1535 'C). The
smelting reduction processes differs from the con-
-venti anal blast furnace route in that non-coking coal
can be directly used for are reduction and melting
work, eliminating the need for coking plants, hence
considerably reducing raw-material costs and envi-
ronmental emissions. The use of lump are or pellets
also dispenses with the need for sinter plants. Typical
smelting reduction processes are: Corex , Finex , and
HIsmelt. Corex developed by Siemens-VAl is an in-
dustrially and commercially proven smelting-reduc-
tion process for the cost-efficient and environmentally
friendly production of hot metal from iron are and
coal[Z5]. The Corex process combines!an iron melterl
coal gasifier vessel with a pre-reduction shaft to pro-
duce a liquid product that is very similar to blast fur-
nace hot metal. Coal, oxygen, and pre-reduced iron
from the pre-reduction shaft furnace are fed into the
melter I gasifier to melt the iron and gasify the coal to
produce a CO-Hz off-gas that is fed into the pre-re-
duction shaft furnace, where lump and/or agglomer-
ated ore is reduced to over 90 %. Although Corex
has a relatively high capital cost[Z5], it is so far the
only smelting process to be operated on a commer-
cial scale. Baosteel Pudong Iron and Steel Co Ltd
(Pudong Steel for short) at Luojing, near Shanghai
started up a so far the world largest Corex C-3000
plant, with a nominal production capacity of 1. 5 Mt
of hot metal per year. Finex is a new smelting re-
duction process which is based on the reduction and
melting of non-agglomerated iron are fines with the
use of non-coking coal as the energy source and re-
ducing agent. The Finex process, developed by Sie-
mens-V AI and the Korean steel producer POSCO
and its Research Institute of Industrial Science and
Technology (RIST), has been in operation at
POSco. Another modern smelting reduction
process is HIsmelt, developed by Rio Tinto. The
heart of the HIsmelt process consists of the vertical
water-cooled Smelt Reduction Vessel (SRV), This
smelter contains a liquid iron bath with a slag layer
above. Feed materials including fluxes are injected
through water-cooled side lances into this metal
bath. Within the smelter, the injected iron oxides
are reduced in the molten iron bath by means of fine
coal also injected by side lances. Hot oxygen-enriched
air, which is blown from above, creates a high turbu-
.lent mixing zone, which enables the transfer of heat
from the space above the slag and iron layers to the
molten iron bath. A HIsmelt SRV could increase its
Vol. 17
production capacity by the factor of 3 if combining
with the direct reduction process of Circafer as front
end[Z6]. In a circulating fluidized bed reactor, the iron
oxides are reduced to a metallization degree of about
75 %. The pre-reduced iron are is then continuously
discharged into a char separator to control the C/Fe
ratio in the discharged product. Finally, the product
is fed directly into the HIsmelt SRV. The CO z emission
for this combined process CCircofer pre-reduction
with HIsmelt smelting reduction) amounts to about
1 800 kg per ton of crude -steel , as opposed to
2227 kg CO 2 per ton of crude steel for the production
via the traditional BF IBOF route, decreased by
18 %. By adding a second-stage fluidized bed reactor
for the final reduction step, the coal-based Circofer
process could also be applied for the production of
highly metallized DRI/HBI to be fed into an electric
arc furnace for direct steelmaking'V.
Although the coal-based new iron and steel
making technologies described previously share the
common merits of significant reduction in CO 2 emis-
sion and energy consumption, they also share some
common technical challenges, resulting from the
higher levels of sulphur contained in coal. In addi-
tion, higher FeO levels in bath smelting slags than
that of the blast furnace will also promote higher
sulphur transfer from the slag to the metal phase.
When using bath smelting metal to produce high
quality steel products, highly efficient hot metal de-
sulphurization operation is needed[Z6].
5 Summary
Iron and steel making, .industry is one of the
most energy-intensive industries, 'Consuming 5 % of
the world's total energy consumption, and emitting
3 %- 4 % of total world greenhouse gas emissions.
Enhancing energy efficiency could be a short-term
approach for the steel industry' to reducing green-
house gas emission. However, the long-term ap-
proaches to achieving a significant reduction in CO z
emissions from the steel industry would be through
developing and applying CO z breakthrough technolo-
gies for iron and steel making, and through increas-
ing the use of renewable energy (such as bioenergy)
for iron and steel making. The COz, breakthrough
technologies include: CO 2 capture and storage (CCS)
technology and its combination with pure oxygen top
gas recycled blast furnace (TGRBF), and new iron
and steel making processes (direct and smelting re-
duction processes) that do not require the steps of
Issue 3 A Brief Overview of Low CO2 Emission Technologies for Iron and Steel Making
agglomeration and coking <which hence eliminate
the CO 2 emission associated with these two steps).
The author would like to thank Dr LI X ianwei
at Baosteel Research Institute <Research and Devel-
opment Center) of Baoshan Iron and Steel Co Ltd
for the helpful and insightful discussion on many
aspects of this paper.
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