Sweden-based joint venture project, Hybrit, will be conducting tests on a pilot scale to produce steel using hydrogen instead of coal and coke, meaning the byproduct will be water rather than carbon dioxide.
Construction work is now starting and the plant is expected to be ready in 2020.
“By starting to build the pilot plant, where we’ll develop and scale up the technology for fossil-free steel production, we’re taking an important step forward towards SSAB’s goal of being fossil-free by 2045,” said SSAB CEO, Martin Lindqvist. “We’re proud of being part of an important and challenging technological shift that can result in our solving part of the climate issue.”
According to SSAB, Hybrit has the potential to reduce Sweden’s total carbon dioxide emissions by 10 per cent, and Finland’s by seven per cent. Hybrit also has global potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.
Hybrit is owned by SSAB, LKAB and Vattenfall, and aims to be the first in the world to develop an industrial process for fossil-free, ore-based steel production. The project was initiated in spring 2016 and the goal is to have an industrial process in place by 2035.
Hybrit has already been awarded financial support from the Swedish Energy Agency on three occasions, for two feasibility studies and one research project. It was recently announced that the Swedish Energy Agency will also be contributing around 37 per cent of the expected €135.4 million cost of the pilot study phase, with the three owner companies meeting the rest of the cost.
(Image: Hybrit partners.)