Hyundai Steel is accelerating efforts to pursue ESG management through an eco-friendly operation recycling wastes in the course of steel making.
The steel maker plans to comply with the government’s carbon neutrality initiative on top of protecting the environment through recycling technologies. Hyundai Steel aims to become an eco-friendly steelmaker that can maintain sustained growth.
Recycling waste is expected to not only reduce costs related to treating wastes and greenhouse gas emissions, to but also replace the conventional supplementary materials, thus reducing the damages of the environment, caused by the collection of natural resources.
Hyundai Steel is utilizing waste shells of oyster and clams in the furnace process. Powered limestone, made through processing of waste shells, is utilized in the sintering process.
Adding powered limestone is essential in the process of sintering iron ore, since it has an effect of enhancing productivity in the furnace process and saving fuel costs.
In 2014, Hyundai Steel began to develop a technology utilizing waste shells in a sintering process and afterward confirmed a possibility of replacing over test-operation.
The steelmaker began to collaborate on an environmental reutilization assessment in the production of waste shells replacing limestone.
The project was done in cooperation with Yeosu Bio, a Yeosu-based waste shell processing company, in 2019. Yeosu Bio obtained the go ahead to utilize waste shells, a supplementary material for steel making from the National Institute of Environment Research last September.
Hyundai Steel also completed the development of a technology to produce calcined lime by mixing waste shell sand by-products of limestone.
Calcined lime can be also used as an intermediate material to remove impurities from steel making, thus widening the scope of using waste shells and maxing out its values.
As a result, Hyundai Steel is expected to put into practice ESG management in all matters ranging from iron making to steel making.
Recycling about 920,000 discarded waste shells in steel making is predicted to have an effect of reducing about 410,000 tons of CO2, an equivalent to that of planning approximately 300 million pine trees.
Wastewater Sludge Recycled for Steel Making
Hyundai Steel has developed a technology to reuse wastewater sludge, produced during a chip manufacturing process, as a supplementary material in steelmaking in cooperation with Samsung Electronics.
The two firms confirmed that calcium fluoride, a major substance in semiconductor wastewater sludge, is similar to the fluorite that is used in steelmaking to reduce melting temperatures and remove impurities.
The new technology was proved in an initial assessment by Korean Environment Corp. in June 2021, and it was proved in a final assessment by NIER last August and approved by NIER last Aug. 31.
Korea relies on fluorite imports from South America and China. Hyundai Steel uses about 20,000 tons of fluorite imports annually.
The steelmaker plans to replace half of its fluorite imports with products recycled with wastewater sludge and expand the portion on a gradual basis.
Fluorite is a mineral that South Korean steelmakers rely entirely on imports.
Hyundai Steel brings in about 20,000 tons of fluorite a year, but with the new technology, the company plans to replace 10,000 tons of fluorite with recycled wastewater sludge starting at end-October.
The country’s No. 2 steelmaker also expected to reduce procurement costs for fluorite.
Cattle Excrement to be Reused as Fuel
Hyundai Steel is seeking to develop an eco-friendly technology to recycle cattle excrement as a fuel.
Hyundai Steel struck an MOU on the production and utilization of a solid fuel made with cattle excrement in the presence of Minister Kim Hyun-soo of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, Chairman Lee Sung-hee of the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation, and Hyundai Steel President Ahn Dong-il last December.
The steel maker plans to use a solid fuel made with cattle excrement as one to dry a refractory and consider putting it as a furnace fuel after undergoing a test-operation.
Using 1 tons of a solid fuel made with cattle excrement will have effects of not only reducing 1.5 tons of CO2 by recycling 4 tons of livestock waste but also replacing fuel imports.
Hyundai Steel has strategies to solidify its status as an eco-friendly steelmaker maintaining sustained growth and make preparations for the future.
This year, the steelmaker plans to build a carbon neutrality foundation by concentrating its corporate capabilities on securing low-carbon application technologies and building a low-carbon production system.
_현대제철 당진제철소 전경.jpg)
