Uncovering Fundamental Mechanisms to Enable Sustainable Steel Manufacturing

Steel is a backbone material in modern society. Global steel demand is continuously growing and is forecast to double by 2050. Strict environmental regulations, new energy sources, government support for manufacturing, and restructuring of the steel industry in the UK and worldwide are creating the opportunity to revolutionise the industry to produce low carbon, high value added steels. This creates an urgent need for a strong UK research base in process metallurgy that will help transform the UK steel industry into more sustainable operations. This Fellowship aligns well with this urgent need for UK steel industry.
Under this EPSRC Manufacturing Fellowship, I will bring best practice in industry to academia. I will establish an internationally recognised multi-disciplinary research team, which will build the research (theoretical, experimental and modelling) capability and create the fundamental knowledge needed to realise transformative changes on extraction, refining and casting of steels, and address the future global mega trends in energy, CO2 regulation and oversupply. A key area of focus will be low carbon, low energy and flexible ironmaking process including HIsarna technology.
HIsarna process is a promising breakthrough technology, as an alternative to conventional blast furnace (BF) ironmaking, created under the ULCOS (Ultra-Low CO2 Steelmaking) project (www.ulcos.org). The concept of the HIsarna technology has been successfully validated by four operational campaigns from 2011 to 2014 on the pilot plant with the capacity of 60 kt per year of hot metal constructed at Tata Steel. The confirmed advantages include: very high energy efficiency; flexibility in feed materials (directly using thermal coal, fine iron ore, waste oxides) without coking and ore agglomeration; 20% or above primary energy and CO2 saving; possibly up to 80% CO2 emission reduction with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) of the top gas; and flexible operations. Significantly higher CO2 emission reduction by HIsarna (without CCS), 35% or above compared to current BF ironmaking, can be achieved by further combining simultaneous scrap melting, biomass injection (partially replacing coal) and hydrocarbon injection in the process.
However, a significant challenging road lies ahead for the HIsarna technology. One of the critical aspects for its up-scaling is that several critical scientific mechanisms have not been discovered due to its innovative nature, but will be uncovered in this Fellowship. These include (1) quantification of the dynamic interfacial phenomena in the reacting slag-metal droplet system due to the element (O, S etc) mass transfer at the slag-metal droplet interface and their important role on the fast reduction of FeO in slag, and (2) reaction mechanisms and rates between hydrocarbons and slag, metal and gases. Under this Fellowship I will also build the modelling capability (CFD model and dynamic process model) for development and optimisation of complex manufacturing processes.
The research capability and the critical knowledge created under this Fellowship will be applied to study more fuel-efficient and economical BF ironmaking by shale gas injection, direct reduced iron production by shale gas, phosphorus refining in basic oxygen steelmaking, high residual obsolete scrap recycling, and interfacial phenomena in the casting mould. Furthermore, a capability on extractive metallurgy will help the UK to develop processes for recovering critical materials from wastes and extracting Mg and Ti, and will also be useful to other areas such as gasification and geology where molten oxide phases are encountered.
This Fellowship will be held at Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG), University of Warwick, in collaboration with Tata Steel, the main steel producer in the UK. It will help unlock the potential of the UK steel industry to be more innovative, productive and competitive, whilst using fewer resources and reducing environmental impact.

1. UK and world steel industry
The aim of my Fellowship is to establish an internationally recognised research team, which will build the research capability and create the fundamental knowledge needed to realise transformative changes on extraction, refining and casting of steels and address the future global mega trends in energy, CO2 regulation and oversupply. A key area of focus is the low carbon HIsarna technology. The chief beneficiaries are the steelmakers in the UK and world. The scientific and technological infrastructure established will enable an accelerated response to the key manufacturing challenges in steel production.
With the threat of increasing raw material and energy prices, the decreasing access to prime ore and coke coal, and the strict target of emission reduction from the EU, it is essential that the steel production in the UK becomes a low carbon, low energy, flexible process focusing on the creation of advanced products in the most cost-efficient way. My Fellowship will enable the UK steel industry to be in the leading position to exploit the game changing HIsarna technology. This can help transform the UK and world steel industry - more innovative, productive and competitive whilst using fewer resources and reducing environmental impact.
2. Suppliers
My Fellowship will have a major impact on upstream raw materials supply chain, cement industry (being an important user of slag by-products), waste processing industry, metal processing industry and engineering industry. Unlike blast furnace ironmaking process, HIsarna technology can flexibly work with a wide variety of raw materials from conventional hematite to titano-magnetite, scrap, waste oxides, thermal coal, shale gas and biomass. The equipment builders and process control system designers will benefit from the construction of the up-scaling plant. The energy sector will benefit from the fundamental understanding of coal gasification.
3. Customers
My Fellowship will provide new knowledge and technologies that can help revolutionise the UK steel industry with substantially reducing CO2 emissions in steel production. This will encourage the customers (e.g. automotive industry) in favour of using steel over other materials with higher carbon footprint.
4. Education and training
The thematic area "Developing manufacturing Leaders" under the EPSRC Manufacturing the Future challenge states that "identifying, nurturing and supporting appropriate individuals at different career stages is vital for the future health of the UK innovation system." My Fellowship will provide a unique platform for myself to become an internationally-recognised leader in the research field of sustainable steel manufacturing. This will also provide great opportunities to develop potential future scientific/engineering leaders in manufacturing by directly engaging with young post-doc researchers and PhD students. This research programme will attract young people to pursue the courses and careers in manufacturing.
5. Society and environment
The success of my Fellowship will help to ensure that the UK steel industry is in a leading position to realise transformative changes on extraction, refining and casting of steels including exploiting the promising HIsarna technology. This will mean that the most sought-after new steels can be produced via a low carbon, low energy, flexible process, which will create new jobs and aid the growth of the UK and global economy. This breakthrough technology will also be used for processing wastes (BOF sludge, mill scales) which has obvious environmental and health benefits. This research will help change the public perception of steel manufacturing from a "smoke-stack" and "sunset" industry, to one that works at the forefront of science and technology, where radical improvement can be achieved in its impact on society. All this information will be given to the media to increase the public awareness of this research programme.