Indian steelmaker Tata Steel has commenced trial of continuous injection of coal bed methane (CBM) gas at one of its blast furnaces at its Jamshedpur steel mill in eastern India, making it the first steel mill in the world to use CBM as an injectant, aiming towards more sustainable steel production, a company official said on Monday, January 24.
The process is expected to reduce the coke rate by 10 kg which is equivalent to the reduction of 33 kg of carbon dioxide emissions per metric ton of crude steel production, and the trial of using CBM as an injectant will continue over the next few weeks, the official said.
“Technologies to decarbonise steel at scale are not ready yet. Tata Steel has undertaken various technology initiatives including pilots and trials to explore new and scalable solutions for decarbonisation. This initiative of CBM injection in blast furnaces will provide us with useful insights into blast furnace operation with hydrogen-based injections and will help reduce emissions,” Uttam Singh, vice president, ironmaking, Tata Steel, said.
“This trial will help in the quantification of the reduction in the coke rate used in the blast furnace and its impact on productivity, and will provide useful insights regarding the operation of blast furnaces with hydrogen-based injections. These insights will be used to design a framework for future sustainable operations of blast furnaces with greener fuels containing more hydrogen,” he added.