Chinese researchers claim to have made steel at phenomenal speed and without using coal

Chinese media reports that a laboratory at the Chinese Academy of Engineering recently achieved the feat of producing steel at a speed 3,600 times faster than what is traditionally done in large steel mills and, most importantly, without using coal. The recipe for steelmaking is normally very coal-intensive.

To make steel, we start with iron ore, which is found in large mines in Australia or Brazil. It is heated to a very high temperature, nearly 1,500 degrees, in a blast furnace with coke, a very pure derivative of coal. After this operation, which lasts for hours, we recover very brittle cast iron, which is then refined, with oxygen, to be transformed into a more resistant raw steel.

But this whole process requires a lot of energy, coal and therefore emits a lot of CO2. The steel industry alone is responsible for 7% of all CO2 emissions on the planet. So a recipe for steel without coal would be excellent news for the planet, it would even be a revolution.

The Chinese team, led by Professor Zhang Wenhai, says they used a very different recipe from what is usually done. They also start with iron ore powder. But here, they pulverize it, in very large quantities, in a blast furnace, with a gas. Everything happens at a very high temperature. This causes an explosive chemical reaction. In a few seconds, they obtain a kind of drop of iron. This iron is then transformed into steel. The researchers believe that they could reduce the energy needed to operate their steelworks by 30%.

Experts say that this flash recipe is already used for other non-ferrous metals. Many researchers have already tried to apply it to steel, but without much success. They do, however, acknowledge that the Chinese team's results are impressive. The challenge now is to move from laboratory production to mass production in real life.