European Steelmakers, Rio Tinto to Collaborate on Green Ironmaking Process
09/19/2008 - Rio Tinto will collaborate with ULCOS, a consortium of the major European steelmakers, on development of a new environmentally friendly ironmaking process through the Isarna project.
Rio Tinto has agreed to collaborate with ULCOS, a consortium of the major European steelmakers, on development of a new environmentally-friendly ironmaking process through the Isarna project.
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ULCOS—Ultra Low CO2 Steelmaking—is an ambitious international R&D initiative targeting the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions from steel production through the development of new breakthrough technologies.
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Isarna technology—so named using an old Celtic word for iron—features a highly energy-efficient ironmaking process that has been under development by ULCOS. The process is based on direct smelting of iron ore fines using a smelt cyclone combined with a coal-based smelter. All process steps are directly hot-coupled, avoiding energy losses from intermediate treatment of materials and process gases.
Corus (an ULCOS participant) originally conceived the smelt cyclone technology, which has been under development for many years. In the 1990s a series of large-scale pilot plant trials successfully demonstrated its operation.
Rio Tinto will participate in the project through the licensing of its HIsmelt® direct smelting technology, which it has been developing since the 1980s. The first commercial HIsmelt plant in Kwinana, Western Australia, is currently undergoing ramp-up. In its present commercial form, the HIsmelt smelter uses coal and oxygen-enriched air in combination with a fluidized bed iron ore preheater to produce liquid iron.
The new project aims to combine the Isarna smelt cyclone with the HIsmelt smelter, and operate the combination on pure oxygen. The project will be renamed “HIsarna” to reflect this merging of concepts.
The resulting process will be compact and highly efficient, and will result in lower CO2 emissions compared to other coal-based processes. The use of pure oxygen will facilitate CO2 capture and storage. The process also promises low capital cost and the ability to use iron ore fines as well as less-expensive non-metallurgical coals.
A pilot plant rated at 65,000 tonnes per year will be built at Saarstahl (an ULCOS participant) in Völklingen, Germany. This unit is due to start operations in early 2010, and a three-year pilot testing phase is anticipated. Scale-up to commercial size and subsequent proliferation through the global steel industry will follow in due course.
“Rio Tinto understands the need for technology development to address climate change,” commented Rio Tinto’s Iron Ore chief executive Sam Walsh, who welcomed the development. “This project represents a logical extension of HIsmelt technology, which is aimed at achieving high levels of CO2 reduction. This is yet another application of that technology, and highlights its broader commercial potential.”
Jean-Pierre Birat, the coordinator of the ULCOS program, commented: “We at ULCOS, which is itself by nature a collaborative programme, consider that cooperation is key in the industry’s efforts to develop breakthrough steelmaking technologies to help tackle climate change. We are looking forward to the results of this very promising HIsarna project.”
ULCOS stands for Ultra–Low Carbon dioxide (CO2) Steelmaking. It is a consortium of 48 European companies and organizations from 15 European countries that have launched a cooperative research & development initiative to enable drastic reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from steel production. The consortium consists of all major EU steel companies, of energy and engineering partners, research institutes and universities and is supported by the European commission. The aim of the ULCOS program is to reduce the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of today’s best routes by at least 50%.
