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Key words: Abstract – Clean steels were “invented” in the middle of the 20th century, at a time when
Metallurgy; non-metallic inclusion steels started to be produced en masse and when it was understood that quality should also
cleanliness; environment; be addressed as a special and important issue, both in terms of the strategy of the sector
cleanliness of air emissions; and as a major research topic for the science and technology that accompanies the industry.
environmental metallurgy The series of Clean Steel conferences, launched in Hungary in 1970 and organized every
4 years since then, with Paul Tardy in the organizing committee or in the lead, have been
providing important time markers of this evolution. Since then, major progress was made by
the introduction in most steel shops of secondary or ladle metallurgy, which was invented
in the process, while steel cleanliness was defined precisely in standards and textbooks.
The discoveries of pioneers have become state-of-the art and, today, a steady state situa-
tion has been reached, where research continues in using new tools and methods to refine
the topic, while new comers, mainly from the BRIC countries, are contributing their under-
standing of the topic to the international steel community. The distinction between special
steels and carbon steels got blurred in this historical process, as similar secondary metal-
lurgy tools were used for making both kinds of steels and, in essence, steel ceased to be a
simple commodity and most steels became special to some extend. Clean steels have thus
not become much more sophisticated recently, but rather much more common and main-
stream. The expression “clean steel” stems from a vision of the purity of the metal in terms
of minor elements, which had been controlled until then only at the margin compared to
the major elements, iron, carbon, silicon and manganese. This is today a somewhat passéed
vision as metallurgy has become a much more holistic and systemic technology, whereby
steels are defined in terms of global composition, of distribution of phases, including the
minor phases that are known as non-metallic inclusions, of microstructures and, more of-
ten than not, in terms of applications and properties in service. Moreover, steels have time
extensions, which are discussed as life cycle or value chain and are thus embedded in the
anthroposphere and its intersection with the biosphere and the geosphere. This emphasizes
the fact that steels are made from raw materials, primary and secondary – thus including
scrap from recycling -, that they are transformed into artifacts that participate to the life of
society and eventually are disposed of at end of life to feed back into the circular economy.
This holistic vision is what we call “environmental metallurgy”. It is linked to clean steel
Received 22 September 2015 production and constitutes another dimension of the cleanliness of steel.
Accepted 7 December 2015 Plenary presentation to the 9th International Conference on Clean Steel; 8–10 September
2015; Budapest; Hungary
teel is a metal, which combines a of the settlers who had replaced the hunters-
(e.g. sludge, oily scales). While steel moves knowledge [7] and the concepts of purity and
further into becoming a material embedded cleanliness (or cleanness) were powerful and
in artifacts, which are used for short or long available to acknowledge the gap between
lives and then eventually get discarded, the reality and the simple models that science
byproducts are either used in other sectors in proposes.
an industrial ecology synergy or landfilled. Steel is mainly a binary alloy of iron and
All may be dissipated to the environment to carbon, but many more elements are part of
a small extent. its composition. Some remain as a memory
Steel itself can be reused or recycled of the raw materials and reactants used in the
and, indeed, steel is the most recycled ma- iron and steelmaking processes while some
terial [6]. The complexity of this scheme is more have been added voluntarily, since it
obvious but is compounded by the fact that was understood in the Neolithic that prop-
steel is not simply iron, but contains other erties could be changed greatly by adding
elements, either originating from the initial some small amounts of alloying elements4 .
raw materials, or added as alloying and sim- The detailed composition of a steel serves as
ilar elements. These have a different fate in a record of the history of the metal.
the recycling loop from iron’s: some are also Another conceptual dimension is re-
recycled, often co-recycled with iron, while lated to how useful or perturbing the
others are simply lost. minor components are: the minor ele-
Steel is thus not simply identical to ele- ments/components that bring positive value,
ment iron, even if carbon steel is one of the or usefulness to steel have been given
simplest alloys in metallurgy. Steel is a com- specially positive names, like alloying ele-
plex mixture of elements, a complex alloy ments, additions, precipitates or, more re-
and a complex set of phases, depending on cently, nano-features. Those that bring neg-
temperature and kinetics histories. ative value are given negative names, like
Why have minority elements and tertiary tramp elements, inclusions and non-metallic
phases been ignored initially, when metal- inclusions5 , impurities, third phases, slag
lurgy developed the power to explain how particles, etc.
metals function, and were given ancillary Note further that the value is relative to
names like trace elements, tramp elements, the steel itself, its properties and applica-
non-metallic inclusions (NMI) and precipi- tions. The more holistic dimension of steel,
tates, like an afterthought? in terms of temporality and of context, is ig-
On the one hand, because steel’s mi- nored at that stage, which corresponds to the
crostructure and properties could be ex- state of knowledge of the middle of the 20th
plained only in terms of the major chemical century. The impact on resources, air, water
elements in its composition, i.e. iron, car- and soil quality, health of workers and popu-
bon and possibly silicon and manganese as lation, or its general societal role are ignored
well, even phosphorous and sulfur, which in this narrow, one-dimensional definition of
is a tribute to the synthetizing and unifying steel.
strength of scientific theories – a kind of ap- Purity in metallurgy relates to chemi-
plication in a different realm of the Pareto cal composition and on to how close that
principle and of the universality, in simple composition is from that of a model metal,
physics, of the linearity between causes and which would contain only the core, basic
effects2,3 . and “useful” elements. Cleanliness relates to
On the other hand, the human mind has phases with an ideal of no ternary phases at
a finite number of categories and models ac- all. One concept does not necessarily lead
cording to which to organize thought and to the other, in this case cleanliness to pu-
2
It also makes it possible to teach metallurgy rity, like it does in the philosophy of the
in a simple way, like physics or chemistry are
4
taught. So much for the Professors! Even if this does not contradict the linearity
3 “principle”, the amount of effect of a small addi-
Non-linearities are often initially handled by
perturbation theory, as if the complexity of nature tion can be very large!
5
was perturbing the simple beauty of the construct As if referring to a mineral, i.e. a non-metal,
of basic theory. was being even more derogatory!
201-page 3
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
(slags). Studies picturing this historical evo- representative samples to estimate these pa-
lution in a quantitative way, i.e. a time- rameters with a reasonable accuracy and
evolution of cleanliness, measured for ex- representativity: one difficulty is related to
ample by total oxygen content, are lacking. large inclusions (e.g. 100 μm or more), which
The concept of cleanliness was born ini- are extremely rare and therefore difficult
tially from the observation under the optical to see, unless very large-size samples are
microscope of non-metallic inclusions by the analyzed.
newborn discipline of metallography. Another issue is due to the fact that the
Cleanliness was rated against standard NMI population depends on time (in the
images of microscopic fields, where geom- process timeline of the steel shop) and on
etry (shape and size) and distribution of temperature. Thus a ladle sample, collected
non-metallic inclusions was distinguished and analyzed with care and finesse, may
against various image types [11]. The trained give a reasonably good estimate of the clean-
observer had established that some shapes liness there and then, but it may bear almost
were acceptable in some steel grades and no connection, whatsoever, with the clean-
that smaller inclusions generally were more liness of solid steel. There is thus a huge
acceptable than larger ones. Although the amount of literature devoted to discussing
composition of inclusions was not available when a representative sample of liquid steel
by then, the observer had established a cor- ought to be taken in order to assess both steel
respondence between grades and inclusion composition and NMI cleanliness [13].
composition by families (sulfides, silicates,
aluminates, alumina, composite inclusions)
based on the sulfur content and deoxidation 1.3 Elements, purity and
history of the steel. These methods, devel- thermodynamic equilibriums
oped in the 20th century and standardized
after the 2nd World War, preempted the gen- The chemical elements initially involved in
eral use of continuous casting and of ladle cleanliness are mostly the non-metals of
metallurgy, and therefore were invented in the Mendeleev table, because they exhibit
a process technology context fairly different higher solubility in liquid steel than in the
from today’s. solid: thus carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, phos-
The further development of the concept phorous, sulfur, selenium and hydrogen. To
of cleanliness went on by exploring various this list, one can add metalloid neighbors in
issues in parallel, based on laboratory work, the table, like boron, arsenic, antimony and
basic research into the physical chemistry tellurium. Some of these elements originate
of steelmaking, steelshop experimentation, from primary raw materials (P, S, As, Sb) or
development of new process reactors and from ironmaking (C), while most of the oth-
new, innovative solutions to control inclu- ers are due either to contamination by the
sions composition, shape, size and distribu- atmosphere (O, N, H), to the general oxidiz-
tion to be eventually introduced in the rou- ing practice (O) used in steelmaking, to the
tines of steelmaking practice. electric arc in the EAF (N) or are voluntarily
added (C, Se, Te, B). Recycling and circular
economy practices, in place or to come, (will)
1.2 A modern vision of cleanliness bring in some of these elements in different
ways (e.g. Sb from red mud, if it were used
A modern vision of cleanliness has emerged as an iron ore substitute). Pollution by tramp
from this 30–40 year concept-building ef- elements (metals like copper, tin, chromium,
fort [8, 12]. etc.), related to the use of scrap, is usually
Inclusions constitute a cloud of phases not considered as a cleanliness issue.
dispersed in the metal matrix and defined Phosphorous and sulfur levels are usu-
by a multi-dimensional set of parameters, ally handled prior to the steel shop, first by
including composition, shape, size and dis- selecting the raw materials and then by con-
tribution. This full description is not read- trolling P and S levels in hot metal (desul-
ily available and one of the main issues re- furization, more rarely dephosphorization
lated to assessing cleanliness is to observe of hot metal) or during oxygen steelmaking
201-page 5
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
Fig. 1. Simulation of the mechanisms of elimination of NMI in a ladle furnace. The initial distri-
bution is a log-normal one, with 0.176 kg/m of calcium aluminates corresponding to 7.9 ppm of
total oxygen [16].
interact with the matrix as the scale of inclusions to promote ferrite nucleation in
dislocations or even at atomic scale (GP carbon steels, at the α → γ transformation
zones12 [17]). Precipitates, usually carbides interface, to foster fine grain size [8]. For
or nitrides, constitute the key features of example titanium oxides, coated by man-
micro-alloying as in HSLA steels (driven by ganese sulfides, have been used for that pur-
niobium, titanium, vanadium, aluminum, pose in weldable plate grades. This exhibits a
but also copper) or of more substantial synergy between NMIs and precipitates, and
alloying like in tool steels or in sophisticated demonstrates that a continuum connects the
stainless steels. They provide precipita- two categories of third phases.
tion hardening. They are not within the The focus here has been on oxygen elim-
scope of the present paper. Structures ination or on avoiding oxygen contamina-
like GP zones or perlite are some of the tion. A similar discussion should address
first nano-structures identified in material nitrogen and hydrogen as well, but it will
science. not be exposed here (see for example [18]).
The many phases that can impersonate The same comment is valid for sulfur (e.g. a
iron (ferrite, perlite, bainite, residual austen- common rule is for manganese to be present
ite, martensite and their infinite variants) are in excess of sulfur in order to favor precipi-
not part of the present discussion of cleanli- tation of MnS inclusions: %Mn > 40% S).
ness either, as they lie at the very core of steel
metallurgy, i.e. of the physics of “pure steel”.
They are controlled by static or thermo- 1.4 Process tools for cleanliness
mechanical heat treatment. Grain bound- control
aries, which are not phases by themselves,
The construction of the concept of cleanli-
are also part of this metallurgy universe.
ness took place in parallel with the devel-
There is a porous interface between NMI
opment of new specific tools in the steel
and precipitates, of which oxide metallurgy
shop, thus new process reactors and tech-
gives a good example. The concept is to use
nologies which are widely used today to
12
“a first example of a structure which is found
control cleanliness and have redefined the
in many oversaturated solid solutions in the field.
course of their returning to stable equilibrium”, This transformation has been progres-
A. Guinier, Personal reminiscence. sive.
201-page 7
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
Fig. 2. ladle furnace with argon bubbling, cored-wire injection with argon bubbling, tank degasing;
RH.
It started from the production of engi- secondary or ladle metallurgy (S/LM). Ad-
neering steels for the automotive, power and ditions for deoxidation and alloying were
aircraft sectors with the purpose of increas- carried out there, and several other func-
ing the reliability and life of the mechanical tions were added, a mixing function (by
parts of vehicles or nuclear reactors. The ma- gas stirring or purging or by electromag-
jor need, hic et nunc, was to control the hydro- netic stirring), and, à la carte, vacuum de-
gen level in liquid steel (to less than 1 ppm gasing and heating, with an electric arc or,
in a carbon steel) in order to avoid its de- less frequently, plasma torches, induction
parture at solidification and its entrapment heating or aluminum oxidation in the melt.
in the solid, which leads to serious integrity The outcome of this evolution was that sec-
defects during the use of the metal part. The ondary metallurgy became a permanent fea-
use of vacuum, which removes hydrogen ture of the steel shop; it often included vac-
straightforwardly, was proposed and gen- uum and preheating devices in steel shops
eralized in these steel shops, using various both for long and flat carbon steels. Stainless
technologies like tank degasing, stream de- steelshops had their own specialized reac-
gasing, DH or RH. It was also understood tors, usually VOD or AOD, to cater to the
that vacuum treatment allowed for other special needs of chromium metallurgy.
benefits, like carbon deoxidation, which has S/LM became a marvelous tool to man-
the major advantage of producing gaseous age steel cleanliness: addition under con-
deoxidation products and not NMIs, intense trolled conditions became possible, but
stirring with its various advantages, and al- also careful slag-metal stirring, slag re-
lows for time management in the logistics of duction, temperature trimming, inclusion
ladle flow, therefore on the quality of tem- coalescence, elimination by flotation and
perature control of liquid steel – including entrapment in the slag and composition con-
reheating by aluminum and oxygen injec- trol, vacuum degasing and sometimes car-
tions (RH-OB, CAS-OB), cf. Figure 2. bon deoxidation, etc. The functions available
Continuous casting (CC) was also at the for engineering steels thus became available
time overwhelmingly taking over the solid- to all steel producers and a subset of them
ification function in the steel shop [19], be- were used for all grades of steel: the distinc-
cause it increased metal yield, cut cost and tion between commodity and specialty steels
make it possible to improve steel quality at thus became blurred.
the same time. CC imposed a new sophis- One important feature of S/LM and CC
tication on the control of steel temperature is that the metallurgical functions are spread
in the ladle, i.e. on superheat in the tundish out in space along the equipment line, de-
and this was made easier to manage by ded- ployed as along a time scale, and therefore
icating a specific area of the steel shop to they can become standardized, sometimes
201-page 8
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
Fig. 3. Schematics of phenomena taking place in the continuous casting tundish in connection with
steel cleanliness.
Fig. 4. Schematics of phenomena taking place in the continuous casting mold in connection with
steel cleanliness14 .
Fig. 6. Alumina inclusion size distribution in the ladle and the tundish [26].
automatically) or some kind of three dimen- clusions float up in the sample, like in any
sional monitoring (e.g. electrolytic dissolu- liquid metal vessel, etc.
tion of a sample and granulometric analysis Finally, there are many transient phe-
of the resulting sludge (slime method), MI- nomena (first heat in a sequence, end of la-
DAS method (forging of a tundish sample dle, change of ladle, change of ladle tube,
in order to weld porosities and to elongate speed changes on the continuous caster,
inclusions, then US testing of the deformed change of submerged nozzle in the caster
sample), LIBS analysis of liquid steel sam- mold, change of tundish, etc.), which cause
ples (e.g. LUS lollipop)), etc. Steelmaking is time variations during a casting sequence
still looking for the Grail in this area, al- and may lead to the deterioration of cleanli-
though existing methods already provide ness, which is best handled by downgrading
much useful information. part of the production.
One trick to guess at the dimension and
number of large-size inclusions that cannot
1.6 Cleanliness, steel properties
be observed – except by chance – is to exe-
during processing and in use,
cute a statistical sleigh of hand, whereby the steel quality
distribution of inclusions, measured at small
or intermediate dimensions, is extrapolated The limiting case of rouverain iron, which
to the larger sizes (Statistics of extreme val- breaks up under the blacksmith’s hammer
ues (SEV) method) [27, 28]. Practically, there makes the point that foreign phases in steel
are several inclusion populations in solid can affect steel processing – if they are
steel, due for example to deoxidation, reox- present in large quantities and large enough
idation, various other contamination mech- sizes – and also steel properties, either their
anisms and process mishaps, and therefore bulk level or their spread.
the case for all of them to align along a sin- This is the basic reason, of course, why
gle distribution curve is fairly weak! The ex- so much interest has been devoted to NMIs
treme values estimated in this manner are and to cleanliness.
fuzzy at best! NMIs carried over into the CC mold can
Note that there are biases when sampling cause various kinds of defects during contin-
liquid steel to obtain cleanliness informa- uous casting, including breakouts or major
tion, as the sampling operation, unless car- surface defects.
ried out under special conditions with argon Many NMIs are trapped in the metal at
injection for example, can lead to an oxygen solidification. Then another of their prop-
pick up of as much as 35 ppm; moreover, in- erties becomes paramount, their plasticity
201-page 12
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
Fig. 8. Fate of non-metallic inclusions depending on their plasticity during hot deformation [29].
compared to that of the metal matrix: in- vacuum, after a step of very clean produc-
deed, NMIs will deform during hot form- tion of the remelting electrode.
ing, either congruently or differently – to The complexity of the phenomena that
the point of breaking up –, align with the control cleanliness, their transient nature,
deformation and create “weaknesses”, like the occurrence of operating mishaps or ac-
separations and internal cracks (e.g. lamel- cidents, as well as the imperfection of the
lar tearing) or traps for hydrogen, plus an methods available to monitor cleanliness in
anisotropy between longitudinal and trans- a satisfactory quantitative way, make it such
verse directions (cf. Fig. 8). Inclusions can that high-level performance requires contin-
also emerge at the surface and create super- uous tension and that crisis of defects cannot
ficial defects, which can be unaesthetic or be avoided, the cause of which is always long
initiate cracks or corrosion. In tough, high and painful to identify and to correct.
strength steels, some inclusions can behave The connection with steel properties,
as internal cracks, even if there is continu- during processing and in use, is also com-
ity with the matrix, and thus influence fa- plex and not fully understood in the real time
tigue properties in a detrimental way, in ef- monitoring of steel production and of steel
fect significantly decreasing the fatigue limit quality. Steel producers have been devel-
of steel [30]. oping methods to improve performance in
This has also been a rich domain for R&D. this domain, like the Global Product Quality
All of these phenomena are mainly re- System (GPQS) of ArcelorMittal [31], which
lated to the larger inclusions, but the general monitors carbon steel coil quality – in a gen-
level of cleanliness remains a factor, in as far eral way and without a particular focus on
as large inclusions are less frequent in clean cleanliness; moreover, the technologies are
steels. This is the reason why the very high- not widely reported in the literature as they
end applications resort to remelting under are in part proprietary.
201-page 13
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
The steel sector is quite different from demonstrating an acute ability to push them
manufacturing sectors, which deal with sim- quickly to their limits and beyond.
pler physics and thus with more repro- Large global companies use their re-
ducible phenomena. Steel indeed has not search teams not to innovate in the process
reached the same level of reliability and pre- sector any longer, but to make sure that the
dictability and it may never do so. This is practices of their best mills, usually located
due to the complexity of steel processes that in Europe, are transferred seamlessly to their
extend from physical chemistry to technol- mills in the rest of the world. As a matter
ogy in connection with the very high pro- of fact, the large European companies are
duction volumes involved. almost invisible in the present Clean Steel
Some level of complexity should prob- conference!
ably be accepted as a limit to some over-
rational practices and considered as a
strength rather than a problem! A steel mill
2 Clean steelmaking
is not a car manufacturing plant and there-
fore it will probably never be run as one!
This is an important caveat to keep in mind, The very basic reason why clean steels can
when narratives like integrated intelligent no longer be considered as a self-centered
manufacturing (IIM) [32] and Industry 2.0 issue looking at steels from the inside, is
are marketed across the media. that making steel is about sorting out non-
ferrous elements and discarding them, when
they work against the purity of the metal: the
1.7 Provisory conclusions main, profit-making product on one side and
by-products or waste on the other side. This
then leads to two questions:
A first conclusion is that the cleanliness of
steel is a story that has been told since the – how are these discarded substances han-
1980s and 1990s. Thus research in the field dled, in term of environmental issues
does not necessarily connect with innova- and of sustainability? Is a clean, sustain-
tion any more, at least radical innovation. able steelmaking meant in a holistic sense
This is due to the fact that the innovation possible?
drivers in the steel sector have matured and – Is not there a different way to approach
saturated 20 or 30 years ago (mass produc- things, using raw material without trans-
tion, quality management, cost control and forming them as much as is done in to-
product engineering) [33]. This is unlikely to day’s technological paradigm? Like, mu-
change until a new driver takes over, which, tatis mutandis bio-based materials (wood,
most likely, will be related to sustainability natural textiles) do?
and to environmental issues.
This connects wit the next section of this Note that the approach used to make steel to-
paper. day is quite general in designing and mak-
Research has not stopped, however, even ing any material, including more emphati-
if it has slowed down significantly. It is now cally the new ones: select the best possible
directed at maintaining the state of the art of set of elements from which to make a mate-
process technologies, in terms of modeling, rial in order to fulfill the targeted property at
instrumentation and control and of adapt- the highest level possible and then deal with
ing technologies which have become stan- sustainability issues as a corrective measure,
dard and have proven their robustness to some would say as an afterthought.
new product challenges and generally new Much of the present problems related to
contexts and maybe eventually new innova- the scarcity and geopolitical status of raw
tion drivers. materials are due to this attitude of prod-
On the other hand, emerging economies uct and material designers, which aim at the
have adopted steelmaking technologies as highest level of performance without much
they were, marketed by sophisticated and regard to resource efficiency and thus to
powerful engineering companies, and are eco-design.
201-page 14
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
they provide to society. Moreover, the en- fall short of the target by a factor 6! New
ergy involved is mainly exergy, not simply breakthrough processes are needed and a
heat dissipated as is the case for combustion path for achieving this has been outlined in
processes. the ULCOS programs [40], proposing a se-
In a practical way, the steel sector has ries of “ULCOS solutions”, based either on
achieved a high level of energy efficiency smelting reduction and CCS, in a modified
pulled by the driver of cost cutting19 and blast furnace or a liquid metal smelting ves-
therefore the leeway left open for improv- sel (ULCOS BF and HIsarna), or a stream-
ing it further is small, of the order of 10 to lined direct reduction furnace implementing
15% [37]. Higher levels could be achieved CCS as well (ULCORED) or two electrolysis
if radical changes in the steel production options, based on the use of carbon-lean elec-
processes were introduced (thus reaching 15 tricity (ULCOWIN & ULCOLYSIS). These
to 25% of energy efficiency increase) [38]. solutions have matured to different levels of
However the business model for introducing TRL, the most advanced one, ULCOS-BF has
these changes is still elusive, which means been engaged to level 7. These are long-term
that the cost of introducing more energy sav- endeavors, maybe still 10 years or more in
ings is far higher than the value of the energy the future, requiring very large R&D bud-
saved. gets, especially when demonstrators are to
The energy transition, which is taking be built.
place now and especially in Europe with dif- Engaging in these major changes for
ferent flavors in each country, is also a chal- making steel with greatly reduced CO2 emis-
lenge for the steel sector. Steel has been orga- sions is similar to engaging in the energy
nized around the use of the cheapest energy transition. The change will only happen
sources and therefore renewables can only when R&D is finished and confirmed at TRL
be introduced through the electric grid, hic 9 and when a “business model” is developed
et nunc. in connection with the world governance
However, the ULCOWIN process, pro- of climate change policies – as any climate-
posed as part of ULCOS’ solutions, can play related transformation is today still an ex-
an important role in a grid fed by a large ternality in the market economy. Moreover,
proportion of renewables: indeed, large steel a world level playing field to avoid carbon
mills based on electrolysis could contribute leakage will also be necessary and COP21
significantly to the grid management in the might bring the necessary framework for
face of the intermittency of green electricity, achieving this. There will be a progressiv-
by introducing a strong and significant op- ity of introduction of the new technologies,
tion for demand-side load management [39]. if and when these conditions are met, but
This is a long shot, but the energy transition its kinetics will not run in parallel with the
is also a long-term endeavor! evolution announced by the Commission in
More options to integrate renewables in July 2015 20 [41, 42].
the steel sector will probably emerge in the Beyond the discussions around free al-
future. lowances to avoid carbon leakage and the
continuous bickering regarding how to ad-
just these, a radical solution would consist
2.3 GHG emissions of steel
in moving the steel sector out of the ETS
production and transition
to a low carbon economy 20
2.2% linear reduction factor of the annual
emission cap, compared to currently 1.74% (2013–
Regarding GHG emissions, the ambition of
2020). 1% annual reduction of benchmark val-
the UNFCC is to cut emissions by 80% by ues, i.e. at least 15% below the current level of
2050 in order to avoid a surface tempera- most efficient installations. However, free allo-
ture increase of more than 2C. This cannot cations based on carbon leakage assessment are
be achieved in the Steel sector by imple- maintained under certain conditions and new
menting energy efficiency solutions, which schemes for funding the development of break-
through technologies are proposed (NER 400,
19
Energy costs account for roughly 20% of op- plus an innovation fund for demonstration of
erating costs in an integrated steel mill. breakthrough technologies).
201-page 16
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
Fig. 9. Air pollution is not easy to photograph coming out of a smokestcak and, therefore, the media
tend to show plumes of steam, which have absolutely no environmental impact.
until breakthrough solutions are available, ovens, blast furnaces, steel shops, roughly 10
while putting in place mechanisms to en- to 20 kg per major reactor; more dust comes
sure that these technologies will actually be from downstream, at every smokestack, but
developed [43]. less in volume. Most of the dust is collected
One should also acknowledge that the and either recycled (in the integrated mill
steel sector, worldwide, is seriously and at the sinter plant, or externally for exam-
unambiguously involved in the circular ple in a Waelz kiln to recover zinc from EAF
economy, with world-record recycling rates dust) or marginally landfilled. Air pollution
achieved on a regular basis, and therefore issues related to dust were handled in the
that the long-term future of the blast fur- second half of the 20th century, especially
nace route is already compromised and will since many steel mills were quickly enclosed
dwindle to a niche production, eventually. in cities subject to urbanization growth.
The point then is to decide whether trans- Volatiles emissions are related to heavy
forming the sector for the coming 50 years or metals (cadmium, mercury, nickel, copper,
so is worth it, in terms of cost of investment, zinc, lead, etc.), inorganic compounds (H2 S,
in particular, in light of the CO2 emissions CO, SOx , NOx , O3 ) and organic compounds
that would be avoided. (PAHs, dioxins and furans, VOCs, POCs,
etc.).
Air pollution has been brought under
2.4 Air emissions control at the best-run steel mills of the
world, following very active research and
Air pollution has been traditionally associ- abatement technology development. More-
ated with steel mills, long after most prob- over, lists of technologies to guarantee con-
lems had found solutions (Fig. 9). formity to present standards have been
Some of the elements separated from iron compiled, for example by the European
leave the ironmaking or the steelmaking re- Commission [44].
actors as dust or volatiles. Besides these “elite” mills, however,
Dust, otherwise known as particulate there are still air pollution issues in parts
matter (PM), originates from ore piles, sin- of the world [45]. Moreover, the standards
ter plants (the most profligate emitters), coke are very likely to be raised to much tougher
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J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
limits by the middle of the century [46], due being related to climate change and to the
to increased urbanization, to the fact that lo- increase in the urban footprint, industry can
cating production plants away from cities act globally by reducing its GHG emissions
will no longer be an option and to several and by abating the impact of cities, for exam-
air pollution issues stepping up from local ple in providing biodiversity or ecological
to global scale (cf. Fig. 10). corridors, a new kind of large scale infras-
The discussion should now address tructures, which will need a strong material
emissions to water and emissions to soil, backbone based in part on steel. This is an-
but it will be kept very short. These issues other example of the slogan “steel is part of
have also been scrutinized at the end of the the solution”, which should probably read as
20th century, regulated and carefully moni- a scientifically optimistic statement regard-
tored, for example in Europe, so that prob- ing how the present technological episteme
lems have dwindled. Some European steel is flexible and plastic enough to address rad-
producers like to state that the water they ically new challenges and new problems.
discharge is cleaner than the water they take
in and, anyway, recycling water internally in
the steel mill has become the norm [47] and, 2.6 Societal challenges and steel
in the EU, the specific consumption of water anthropospheric services
of the steel industry is negligible compared
to some other parts of the world. Materials and steel are deeply woven into
Soil pollution is mostly a legacy of the the present technological episteme and have
past, an archeological signature of steel mills been playing such a role across many more
long shut down. As a matter of fact, soil and past ones. Materials have been used to cre-
water table pollution went hand in hand at ate barriers between the ecosphere and the
that time, but this has been long past. anthroposphere, because, from a physical
standpoint, they can sustain large gradients
of temperature, stresses or chemical poten-
2.5 Biodiversity and more holistic tial. Inside the anthroposphere, they sepa-
issues rate the space where people live and work
from the reactors of the technosphere, where
Biodiversity is a global threat to the eco- conditions are decided by engineers and
sphere and trends seem to announce the not friendly to life, like a blast furnace, a
6th largest biodiversity extinction in the his- distillation tower or a nuclear reactor [50].
tory of the planet [48]. The United Nations The energy system, from energy harvesting,
have pointed this danger out as early as the electricity generation to energy distribution
Earth Summit in Rio, in 1988, when the Con- through power or pipe lines, relies heavily
vention on Biodiversity was launched [49] on steel, which constitutes its backbone and
at exactly the same time as the UNFCC. A its structure, inside which more specialized
sharp reduction in biodiversity endangers functional materials like copper, silicon, or
the ecosystem of the planet as a whole, or fiber-reinforced composites assume specific
at the very least, announces major evolu- missions [51].
tionary changes, at a scale that was never Steel producers sell steel to make power
observed in human history. plants or power poles but not to assume the
Steel, as an economic sector or a mate- function of holding and tying the energy sys-
rial, cannot be considered as causally con- tem together. This constitutes a service that is
nected to or partly responsible for this bio- mostly taken for granted and thus not mon-
diversity or its loss – except at the local etized. The concept is similar to the ecosys-
scale of steel mills and mines, where regula- tem services that biodiversity delivers to the
tions and legislation has provided a frame- biosphere and the anthroposphere. We have
work that steel and mining companies fol- called them anthropospheric services (AS). It
low. However, globally, the industry itself would probably be possible to estimate their
is threatened as an element of society and, monetary value, following the methodology
furthermore, it holds part of the solutions followed for climate change or BES [52, 53],
to alleviate the risk. The loss in biodiversity but the work remains to be done.
201-page 18
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
Contrary to the issues discussed in the abundant), less specific (there are elite mills
previous sub-sections and related to the neg- and others).
ative effects of industrial activities on the Moreover, the discussion on clean steel-
ecosphere or the anthroposphere, AS are a making describes the interaction of the steel
positive contribution of steel to society and value chain with the ecosphere (harvest-
to the resolution of the societal challenges ing of natural resources, role of secondary
which the European Commission stresses, raw materials, creation of ancillary mate-
for example, in its Europe 2020 agenda [54]. rial flows [waste, co-products, by-products,
This approach does not fully cover the scope residues], emissions to air, water and soil,
of the assets that steel, materials or industry sometimes pollution, contribution to an-
in general provide. For example, industry thropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases,
is widely expected to provide jobs and thus interaction with biodiversity and BES) or
to contribute to monetary flow and to eco- with the anthroposphere (emissions becom-
nomic growth, but also to participate in the ing pollution, work health and safety is-
creation of well-being, as steel, like many sues, public health issues, positive value of
commodities in the economy, has been di- steel, anthropogenic services rendered by
rectly connected to GDP per capita [4]. All steel to society, etc.). These descriptions are
these issues cover what we have called the less finely analyzed and quantified than the
social value of steel. first part on steel cleanliness and they tell
The liabilities of industry have been stories, narratives, rather than state scientific
covered more extensively in publications, facts [57]. The objective is conformity with
approaches (LCA) and narratives than its an ideal which would preserve the environ-
assets: this remark was indeed one of the ment, save it for future generations: this has
starting points of the SOVAMAT initia- been turned into targets and standards by
tive [55] and of the series of Society and hoards of legislation at country and supra-
Materials seminars (SAM) [56]. regional levels, like the EU: in Western-style
countries, where this approach has been
strong, one can consider that the contract
2.7 Provisory conclusions
has been met, until more issues are raised
The section on clean steelmaking has been and the severity of regulations increases ac-
presented in a classical way, thus starting cordingly in the future.
from environmental issues, enlarging the However, this is the other face of the coin,
viewpoint to sustainability and then to the if one ambitions to speak about clean steels
social value of steel, a common attempt at in a holistic way. Indeed, steel is a major ma-
reaching some level of holism. terial produced by industry to provide so-
The approach differs from that of the ciety with anthropospheric services. To do
first section, because the figures involved are so, the present technological episteme pro-
completely different in nature: larger (up to vides solutions to collect the element iron
one order of magnitude higher than iron’s from primary or secondary resources and
and not ppm), less precise or well known in doing this, mines much larger resources,
(the amount of published work is much less which are then sorted out and transformed
201-page 19
J.-P. Birat: Metall. Res. Technol. 113, 201 (2016)
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