The ULCOS Project (Ultra-Low Carbon dioxide Steelmaking)

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The ULCOS Project (Ultra-Low Carbon dioxide Steelmaking) is today the largest endeavour within the steel industry worldwide, proactively looking for solutions to the threat of global warming. The initiative was taken by Europe's three largest steelmakers; Corus, ArcelorMittal and ThyssenKrupp, and together with the other core partners, ILVA, Voest, Dillingen/Saarstahl, and LKAB, ULCOS is a consortium of 48 European companies that has launched a cooperative research & development initiative to enable drastic reduction in CO2 emissions from steel production. The aim of the ULCOS programme is to reduce the CO2 emissions of today's best routes by at least 50 percent. Koen Meijer, Corus ULCOS Project Coordinator, talks to the Low Carbon Innovation Network about how this massive reduction is going to be achieved.

Carbon dioxide is unavoidable in the current mainstream method of producing hot metal. The most modern steel plants today operate very close to the limits set by physics, and further reducing the amount of carbon used for making steel is not possible without technological change. Faced with this challenge, considerable research into innovative technologies has been carried out in the ULCOS programme since its start-up in 2004. In order to better manage the ambitious targets of the project, the research programme was divided into several stages, the first being an initial feasibility study lasting four to five years. Within this study, over 80 technologies were investigated, where the ULCOS group were then able to identifying several promising breakthrough technologies that will enable a significant Carbon dioxide reduction in making steel. Existing process technologies were then evaluated using these tools and this provided a definition of best European and best world practices, benchmarks against which modified and new process proposals could be judged.

“Corus plays an important role in the management of the project,” Koen Meijer, Corus ULCOS Project Coordinator, explained. “Because of its complexity, the project is divided into sub-projects, each with a specific technical task and team.” Corus is leading 2 of the 4 sub-projects dealing with new technology development, one of which is based on Corus patents. Corus Research, Development & Technology is contributing substantial efforts comprising several man-years in the various working groups.

As a result of systematic technological improvements, blast furnaces in EU 15 currently consume an average of around 0.49 kilos of carbon-containing materials per kilo of hot metal produced. However, the best European steel plants are currently operating at the limits of what is presently technically possible. “To break through this barrier, the production of hot metal via the blast furnace route needs to be placed on a completely new technological basis,” explained Koen Meijer. “The research carried out in the ULCOS programme has already made significant headway in identifying some of these potential new technologies.”

ULCOS has investigated the use of biomass in steel production, whilst production of charcoal in tropical plantations has been selected for further study. Meanwhile, ULCOS is also looking into the application of CO2 capture and geological storage in the steel industry. These studies, focusing on technical requirements and economic considerations, have been integrated into the development of new steel making processes. “Out of more than 200 innovative steel production routes, we have selected four for further development,” Koen Meijer revealed. “Blast furnace top gas recycling technology has already been tested in a pilot size blast furnace in Sweden, with positive results. Pilot plant design and construction are in progress for Isarna, a new smelting-reduction technology, as well as direct reduction technologies. For the fourth technology, Electrolysis of iron ore, we have carried out successful lab tests.”

In terms of financing, the ULCOS programme is supported by a 59 million Euro budget over a 6 year period. The partners in the ULCOS consortium foot the bill for 56 percent of the total cost, whilst the European commission financially contributes the remaining 44 percent through its 6th Framework and the RFCS (Research Fund Coal Steel) programmes. Both are set up to promote industrial research and technological development within Europe.

It is, however, still early days for the ambitious project. The present development phase of ULCOS still has 18-24 months to run. The next step will be industrial demonstration of the four developed technologies, planned for the period of 2010-15, and the results can potentially be rolled out into production plants some 15 to 20 years from now.

For more information of ULCOS technologies, please visit:
http://www.ulcos.org/en/research/home.php