The third campaign on a pilot low-carbon iron making plant at Tata Steel’s IJmuiden works in the Netherlands was successfully completed last week. The latest test campaign by the European steel industry’s Ultra-Low CO2 Steelmaking (ULCOS) consortium to develop the potentially breakthrough HIsarna technology on the experimental IJmuiden plant started on May 28 and was completed a month later. The highlight was the production of commercial grade steel for the first time from a batch of liquid HIsarna iron. Iron was also repeatedly produced for continuous periods lasting two to three days, and tests were conducted using various kinds of coal and ore.
Mr Karl Koehler, MD and CEO of Tata Steel in Europe, said, “This HIsarna campaign has been a significant achievement for ULCOS. I congratulate everyone involved for their hard work and technical expertise. Initiatives like this show the steel industry at its innovative and sustainable best. They are also tangible evidence of how the industry is responding to the challenge of climate change.”
The HIsarna plant has a theoretical capacity of 60,000tns a year compared to integrated steel plant capacities that are measured in the millions of tonnes. The current phase, which will need to undergo a further campaign before it is completed, is intended to prove the HIsarna concept is capable of producing iron at pilot scale.
Mr Koen Meijer, Head of Tata Steel’s international HIsarna project team, said, “The process has the theoretical potential to reduce emissions from steelmaking by 20% but it will be a minimum of ten years before it might be realistic for steel makers to start considering adoption of the technology.”
