A paradigm shift in the steel industry?

Last summer, SSAB produced the world’s first “fossil-fuel free” sponge iron, obtained through hydrogen-based reduction, as opposed to the more traditional carbon-based reduction.

• Storage: Pressurised hydrogen gas has a low storage density and an unfortunate tendency to leak. Hydrogen can also be converted into more readily storable products (e.g. methanol or metal hydrides), but then it needs to be extracted from those products, leading to inefficiencies.
• Thermodynamics: The reduction reaction of iron oxide and hydrogen is endothermic, whereas with carbon monoxide it is exothermic. Significant additional energy must therefore be supplied to maintain the reaction. One option to alleviate this could be to supplement the hydrogen with a non-carbonaceous gas, which does react exothermically.
• Clean production: Most hydrogen is currently produced using natural gas. “Green” hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis, but it is energy intensive and expensive. Can improved electrolysers drive costs down?
• Infrastructure: Existing infrastructure, in Europe particularly, is centred around the blast furnace. It remains unclear to me whether existing infrastructure is compatible with a hydrogen-based approach, or whether it can even be retrofitted for purpose.

I have no doubt that this industry will innovate and provide solutions to these problems (and others). As this field continues to develop over the next few years, it will be more critical than ever to capture ideas effectively for patent protection.

I will be watching this space with anticipation.