German steelmaker Thyssenkrupp Steel has announced that it is cooperating with Australian steelmaker BlueScope Steel to scale up research activities for carbon-neutral steel production. The focus of this cooperation is on smelting units, namely, the replacement of blast furnaces by direct reduction (DR) plants with downstream smelters. The research cooperation with BlueScope Steel is planned to run for four years. BlueScope will contribute to the cooperation with its experience gained from operating smelters in New Zealand using DRI made from iron sand.
Thyssenkrupp is currently building two identical smelters, each electrically operated and with a capacity of 100 MW, to process the annual volume of 2.5 million mt of DRI. The use of a smelter offers a flexible raw material basis, since DR pellets and lump ore can also be used in the DR plant.