Follow a 2020 report of the International Energy Agency. These numbers have risen sharply this century, thanks to rapid economic growth in China and elsewhere.
Massive emissions and increasingly stringent climate policies in some regions, including Canada and the European Union, have begun to force some companies to discover cleaner ways to produce these essential building blocks of the modern world.
The Swedish joint venture Hybrit delivered the first batch of commercial green steel to Volvo last year. The partnership between steel giant SSAB, state electricity company Vattenfall and mining company LKAB, used a carbon-free hydrogen-based production method instead of coal and coke. Other companies are exploring the use of facilities with equipment to capture carbon dioxide or, like Boston Metalperform completely different electrochemical methods.
Charm is evaluating a different approach. In the back corner of the company’s warehouse, employees used a narrow metal framework, known as an innovator, to react the company’s biooil with hot steam and oxygen. That creates what is known as a syngas, which is essentially a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.
INDUSTRIAL CHARM
That can be swapped into a method of producing iron and steel.
The most common form of steelmaking begins with a blast furnace, which heats iron ore, limestone, and coke, a form of coal, to temperatures above 1,500 ˚C. The carbon-rich metal is formed, known as “cast iron”, which is then transferred to a second furnace where oxygen is blown in, impurities are removed and other materials are added to produce other types of steel. together.
Emissions occur at every stage of this process, including mining and production of iron, coal and coke; the process of burning fuel to run the furnace; and the chemical reactions that take place within them.
