Steel Strip

Corus, the European unit of Tata Steel Ltd. announced Friday plans to build a new pilot plant at its Ijmuiden, Netherlands steelworks to test a new steelmaking process that could potentially reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 50%, the company said Friday.
The company is working in consortium with the Ultra-Low CO2 Steelmaking research group or ULCOS to build a pilot plant to test a new technology called Hisarna.
The pilot plant will cost EUR20 million to build and will be able to produce 60,000 tons of steel a year. The plant should be operational by the fourth quarter of 2010, a Corus spokesman said.
Hisarna combines two technologies to reduce CO2 emissions. The first technology, developed by Corus, melts iron ore fines in a cyclone. The second technology, developed by Rio Tinto PLC is called Hismelt and places the iron ore in a smelter vessel for final ore reduction and iron production.
The new steelmaking process requires significantly less coal usage and thus reduces the amount of CO2 emissions. Furthermore, it is a flexible process that allows partial substitution of coal by biomass, natural gas or even hydrogen(H2).
The new process could improve energy efficiency by 20%, Corus said.
The Dutch government is contributing EUR5 million while ULCOS and the European Commission will contributed the remaining EUR15 million in funding.