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India's Tata Steel launches world's first test of hydrogen gas for steel production

Written by Bruno Teles
Published 24/04/2023 às 17:13
hydrogen gas
Tata Steel (photo/publicity)

Tata Steel, an Indian steel giant, recently announced a pioneering test that is being carried out at its plant at Jamshedpur Works.

Basically, they are injecting large volumes of hydrogen gas into a blast furnace continuously in order to evaluate the effectiveness of this practice. The test comes in the context of Tata Steel's initiatives to reduce coke consumption and lower carbon dioxide emissions. If such initiatives succeed, coke rates could be reduced by up to 10%, which would lead to a 7-10% reduction in CO2 emissions per ton of raw steel produced.

The potential of hydrogen gas in steel production

This pioneering effort aligns with the environmental goals that Tata Steel set for itself in order to become an industry leader in sustainability and reach the goal of Net Zero by 2045. In this regard, the company is fully exploring the possibilities offered by the hydrogen gas, which is a viable alternative to renewable energy sources that are still under development for steel production.

Alternatives for the production of green steel

Steelmaking is one of the industries where emissions and fossil fuel use are difficult to reduce. For that reason, the green steel production is an increasingly important initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, industry players have set ambitious targets to reduce their emissions, and are trying to find alternative ways to produce steel that do not rely on fossil fuels.

The Swedish company H2 Green Steel was founded in 2020 with the ambition to accelerate the decarbonization of the steel industry using green hydrogen. Its founder and largest shareholder is Vargas, who is also a co-founder of Swedish battery maker Northvolt. H2 Green Steel has its first green steel plant under development in Boden, northern Sweden.

The plant is expected to produce five million tons of green steel – manufactured using clean energy – by 2030. green steel production in Boden will be powered by one of the largest green hydrogen plants in the world, operating with renewable electricity. Instead of emitting large amounts of CO2, as in traditional steelmaking processes, the main emission will be water.

Efforts to achieve long-term sustainability in the steelmaking industry

In summary, it is important to highlight the efforts that have been made in the steel production industry to reduce emissions of harmful gases to the environment and achieve long-term sustainability. Testing the use of hydrogen is an innovation that can transform the way steel is produced, ensuring important reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and contributing to the achievement of Net Zero goals.

In this sense, it is essential that other companies and industries also follow the example of Tata Steel and H2 Green Steel, looking for ways to produce steel in a more sustainable way and reducing emissions of harmful gases for the environment.

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Bruno Teles

I talk about technology, innovation, oil and gas. I update daily about opportunities in the Brazilian market. With more than 2.300 articles published in CPG. Agenda suggestion? Send it to brunotelesredator@gmail.com

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