Towards a Closed Steel Eco Cycle
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WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE?The Swedish steel industry has developed steel products with high quality and energy efficient production processes with little impact on the environment. Up to recently the main environmental work has aimed to resolve specific problems in connection with emissions to air, ground and water. The demands for sustainable development - from simultaneously focusing on saving of natural resources and energy and at the same time producing recyclable products. For manufacturers and users of steel this implies that the producing processes must be changed so that the metals integrated in the raw materials can be better utilized than today and the future products can be used in recyclabe constructions and through less consumption of the resources. HOW CAN THE PROGRAMME CONTRIBUTE TO A SOLUTION?
In a closed eco-cycle not only iron and some useful metals should be recycled but all essential parts from steel scrap and iron ore should in an energy-efficient way and with low emissions to the environment. Analysis and preparing of the scrap is important to increase the yield of the iron and alloys at the re-melting to new steel. New technology facilitates better classification and sorting of scrap after more careful analysis of the metal contents than what can be done today. Mapping of the scrap flow in the country gives the basis for a more efficient collection of scrap.
By pre-heating the scrap to high temperature in special equipment the cleanliness of scrap will improve and in that way the flexibility during scrap melting will increase. At the same time the volume of the waste gases will be small and undesirable contiminations can be removed in a more effective way. Changed metallurgical process technique will increase the possibilities to maintain the alloying metals in the steel melting and avoid loss of metals to the slag. Development of a new method to take advantage of the content of vanadium in the iron ore is included in the programme.
An important aspect in the steel eco-cycle is to apply to the quality of new advanced high purity steel to optimise the steel amount in the final products in the combination with a resource economising use and recycling. The development of the future steel grades is very fast. With new methods of constructions the steel eco-cycle can be improved and recycling with high quality can be assured.
Further development of the environmental evaluation methods is a main point in the research programme. This will be done by evaluation of some of the projects in the programme and to create environmental evaluation instruments for processes and products development and to give the possibility to describe the environmental assessment in a broad society perspective.
The programme will be organised in the way that cross-research and cross-learning effects will be reached.
WHO WILL BENEFIT FROM THE RESULTS?
The project comprehends the whole eco-cycle of the steel and therefore the advantage of the results will be used by many in the industry and in the society.
The steel industry can take advantage of the results for improvement of present practice during the manufacturing processes as well as increasing the environmental evaluation of the steel and also as a basis of decisions for investments.
As time goes on the scrap industry gets scrap that is more adapted for recycling than today simultaneously as their handling gives further improvement of scrap quality.
The mechanical industry gets tools for products design where the quality of the future steels will be fully utilized.
Environmental evaluation methods will be available for research institutes and the educational system for development and education.
