Austrian steel and technology group Voestalpine has produced the world’s first rail made using hydrogen-reduced steel … The pioneering “green” rail, created as part of a pilot project, was developed at the company’s [Austrian] Donawitz site and is now installed at Linz Central Station [in Upper Austria, the country’s Northern state].
The rail consists of a combination of scrap metal and hydrogen-reduced pure iron—manufactured in voestalpine’s HYFOR pilot plant—melted in the company’s in-house research steelworks, TechMet. It was then processed into its final form at the adjacent rail rolling mill. As with all voestalpine rails, the product is highly durable and wear-resistant.
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Hydrogen-based steel production uses—ideally green—hydrogen from renewable energy sources to separate oxygen from iron ore. Unlike conventional methods, this process does not generate CO2, only water vapor as a byproduct. The hydrogen-reduced pure iron was produced in the HYFOR pilot plant, and the melt was carried out in the company’s proprietary research facility Technikum Metallurgie (TechMet), a one-of-a-kind miniature full-scale steelwork.
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For anyone else who’s never heard of hydrogen reduced steel before, here’s the gist as far as I could understand from a quick web search:
Raw iron ore is usually mined as iron oxide. To make that into metallic iron, you need a way split up the iron oxide molecules and carry the oxygen atoms away. This is traditionally done in a blast furnace using coal. In addition to being burned as fuel, the coal also provides carbon atoms, which will rip the oxygen off the iron and use it to form carbon dioxide instead.
The hydrogen reduction process proposes to substitute hydrogen for carbon. This changes the byproduct from carbon dioxide to dihydrogen monoxide, AKA water.
Steel production will still need some carbon, for steel being steel (iron and carbon alloy). But that will be much less carbon, when not used for fuel and reducing agent.
But wasn’t ThyssenKrupp already using hydrogen to power at least some of their furnaces? And weren’t they in the process of building a pipeline for the exact purpose?
