Austrian Voestalpine sells first batch of premium decarbonized steel
Austria's largest steel company, Voestalpine, has sold the first shipment of its highly publicized premium steel with reduced greenhouse gas emissions. However, the company refused to name its client.
“As a result of an innovative combination of materials and even more efficient processes, direct emissions from voestalpine greentec steel Edition products have been reduced by about 10 percent. We are currently processing several customer orders and there are indications that there will be significant demand for sophisticated greentec steel Edition products such as hot rolled steel strip, isovac electrical steel and phs-ultraform, ”the steel giant said. .
The company achieved 10 percent carbon savings over traditional production methods by modifying equipment, maximizing scrap and switching to clean electricity.
The next phase of the company's step-by-step plan to switch to fully decarbonized steel will partially replace the existing blast furnace production with hybrid-electric steel, which could reduce carbon emissions by about a third by 2030.
Sponge iron (HBI) and scrap metal will be used to meet the objectives as critical raw materials for future carbon neutral stainless steel production.
In parallel, the voestalpine group is intensively researching the so-called disruptive technologies in order to consistently increase the use of green hydrogen in steel production in the long term and achieve the production of carbon neutral steel by 2050.