Installation and commissioning of the equipment is carried out by the British division of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries by order of the Austrian company Voestalpine. The Nikkeiasia portal does not specify when producing production should occur, but reports that all work is close to completion. This steel mill in Austria will become the world's largest similar enterprise working on a technological process with a zero carbon dioxide emission in the environment.
The engineering division of the Japanese concern ranks third in the world in the market of manufacturers of steel equipment. Mitsubishi engineers are actively working on the improvement of the innovative hydrogen process of iron recovery from ore. This technology has compared to traditional doms, there is a significant drawback - a smaller output of the metal. The new VoestalPine plant will produce 250 thousand tons of steel per year.
However, on the other hand, many and advantages: In addition to environmental attractiveness, such furnaces are more than twice as cheaper of classic domains. Although structurally and similar to them. The key issue of the economic efficiency of hydrogen steel production is thus becoming the cost of hydrogen. The current market price of this gas fluctuates in the area of one US dollar per cubic meter (about 74 rubles). When preserving the modern pace of development of the hydrogen production industry, it should fall more than three times by 2030.
But even with such prospects about completely environmentally friendly metallurgy, it is too early to dream. Experts in the industry note that truly favorable processes similar to the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries will be only with a tenfold depreciation of hydrogen. However, the heavy industry is always developing on the basis of long-term planning. Therefore, Voestalpine in 2019 introduced a plant for the production of hydrogen by electric power Six Megawatt. This is the most powerful enterprise in the world to develop "green" hydrogen, that is, renewable energy sources are used to obtain it.
Source: Naked Science