The steel industry is one of the biggest contributors to global carbon emissions, accounting for up to 9% of total emissions. However, UK scientists may have found a solution to significantly reduce this figure. According to an article by Catherine Boudreau in Business Insider, researchers at the University of Birmingham have developed a process to clean up blast furnaces, the most carbon-intensive part of steelmaking, which could slash nearly 90% of carbon emissions from the UK steel industry.
The system, which uses a mineral called perovskite to react with carbon dioxide at lower temperatures, captures and recycles carbon dioxide to trigger the chemical reactions that convert iron ore into steel. The researchers are searching for industrial partners to test the new method in a pilot plant. While other strategies to decarbonize steel are emerging, the researchers' approach could be cheaper and easier to adopt, as it repurposes blast furnaces rather than replacing them. However, there are still some disadvantages to the method, and it may be necessary to use multiple techniques at the same time to decarbonize the steel industry.
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