Fossil free steel mills

“Everybody” know it can’t be done, but Sweden is planning the second one:

1 Like

No carbon? I guess they will only make very weak steel then. So much for highly prized Swedish steel, now just rusty low strength crap.

2 Likes

Gotta go with Steamer on this one, We still have not established a tee time.

It’s great when you don’t share waterways with other countries, and powering mills with water is nothing new but it’s a good project.

Wikipedia says the pig iron from which steel is made is 4-5% carbon which is more then the 2.1% of carbon steel.

Carbon monoxide is used to reduce the amount of carbon.

The main chemical reaction producing the molten iron is:

Fe2O3 + 3CO → 2Fe + 3CO2

But …

" A very important chemical reaction during steelmaking is the oxidation of carbon. Its gaseous product, carbon monoxide, goes into the off-gas, but, before it does that, it generates the carbon monoxide boil, a phenomenon common to all steelmaking processes and very important for mixing. Mixing enhances chemical reactions, purges hydrogen and nitrogen, and improves heat transfer. Adjusting the carbon content is important, but it is often oxidized below specified levels, so that carbon powder must be injected to raise the carbon again."

Yes, probably why it’s called an oxygen blast furnace . It’s the O2 that reduces the carbon.

I don’t know much about steelmaking, but Swedish steel is known for high quality.
Most Swedes are trustworthy.(OK, all rules have exceptions)
When they say they make fossil free steel I take their word for it.

May God bless the Swedes.

By weight, the main product of a steel mill is carbon dioxide; steel is a secondary side product.

It’s nice to see development in this field.

didn’t read it all guys but maybe they mean they’re just not going to use coal to create the heat? solar panels? jokin.

I’m very knowledgeable in this subject and by that I mean I spent 60 seconds scanning the Wikipedia article.

Early steel makers used charcoal.

I learn something new every day… I guess you can replace the coke in steel production with hydrogen and iron oxide:

New production processes are exploring the use of hydrogen gas instead of coke. Hydrogen reacts with iron oxide in a similar fashion to carbon monoxide, but instead of producing carbon dioxide, the only byproduct is water vapor. When hydrogen used in this process is derived from renewable or decarbonized sources itself, the steel making process can become completely emission-free, creating ‘green steel.’

Luckily, as long as there are ships we’ll always have an endless supply of iron oxides! :upside_down_face:

I reckon that’s the ore.

Edit: no, I guess not. Silly me.

Andrew Carnegie, the robber baron and grand daddy of the US steel industry knew to build his mills in the middle of Pennsylvania coal country. He was also a player in the Johnstown flood, one of the not so well known but also one of the most destructive disasters in US history. An interesting side story to his fame as an empire builder.

1 Like

Oh, yeah. The Johnstown flood. . . quite the story if no one has ever heard of it. Johnstown Flood - Wikipedia

If you want to read more than the Wikipedia article

1 Like

Early steel makers, back in the iron age.

the process of ancient steelmaking was lost in the West after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE