Renovation and innovative development of steel production in Ukraine in the context of energy efficiency and Green Deal

Abstract

In the future recovery of the economy, an important role is assigned to the steelmaking complex. In the context of the Green Deal requirements to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, the metallurgy of Ukraine has a unique opportunity not only to overcome the technical lag of the industry in terms of energy efficiency and environmental safety, but also to get rid of an inefficient technological structure with physically worn out and out-of-date, obsolete fixed assets. The solution lies in the transition to small metallurgical plants (SMP) and the strategy of minimizing economic and environmental costs. The industrial infrastructure of Ukraine needs the implementation of three groups of SMPs in order to use available iron ore resources, scrap metal and iron-containing waste as the initial charge. The production and remelting of metallized raw materials (DRI/HBI) in an electric arc furnace (EAF) as an alternative to the ecologically dirty technological route blast furnace — converter will supply the domestic market and exports with competitive sheet metal products of casting-rolling modules. Low-carbon at the first stage, the technology will allow in the medium term to reduce the specific emission of CO₂ by 1.45-2 times and will create a basis for the further transition to carbon-neutral hydrogen metallurgy. Two groups of SMPs, based on technological routes with arc and induction electric furnaces, should focus on the market of mass-demand steel and small batches of special steels, as well as provide foundry and forging production for the machine-building complex. In the context of new SMPs, the modernization of EAFs that are idle due to problems with sales markets, through the introduction of a "deep" bath, a system of distributed aspiration, water-cooled elements with reduced heat loss, optimization of the electrodes pitch diameter, is gaining relevance.