Nippon Steel achieves 43% reduction in carbon emissions in test furnace

Japanese steelmaker Nippon Steel has announced that it is the first in the world to achieve a 43% reduction in carbon emissions in a test furnace at its East Nippon Works Kimitsu Area plant.

This result was achieved during tests that took place from November to December 2024.

The steelmaker has been conducting developmental testing of its Super COURSE50 technology, which uses heated hydrogen to reduce CO2 emissions, in a test furnace since May 2022. The company achieved a 22% reduction in emissions from the furnace in 2022 and 33% in 2023.

In total, the corporation is developing three super-innovative technologies under the Nippon Steel Carbon Neutral Vision 2050 project with the support of the Japanese government.

According to the company, there are about 800 blast furnaces in the world (including 20 in Japan), mostly in East Asia. Producers using the blast furnace route, including Chinese producers, are striving to decarbonize this process.

“The 43% reduction in CO2 emissions achieved by the test furnace is significantly higher than the results published in Japan and abroad. This demonstrates that Nippon Steel is a global leader in the development of decarbonization technologies,” the company said.

Based on the existing technology, Nippon Steel will continue to develop solutions that reduce CO2 emissions from steel production by more than 50%, including the development of scalable technology. The company will accelerate its efforts to apply these innovations in large blast furnaces.

In October of this year, Erdemir, a Turkish steelmaker and part of the OYAK Mining and Metallurgical Group, tested hydrogen injection into blast furnace No. 1. In this way, the company is accelerating its efforts to reach zero emissions by 2050. The tests were carried out in cooperation with Erdemir Engineering and Irish Linde, an industrial gas and engineering company.

As GMK Center reported earlier, in April 2023, Indian steelmaker Tata Steel announced that it had started testing hydrogen injection into blast furnace E at its flagship steel plant in Jamshedpur to reduce coke consumption and cut carbon emissions.