How Can We Reduce CO₂ Emissions from Steel Production?

Yan Ma

Steel is the backbone of our civilization, but it is also the largest single cause of global warming, through its massive greenhouse gas emissions (about 7% of all global CO₂ emissions). YAN MA introduces here a novel approach to deploy intermittent renewable energy in the form of green ammonia and use it for an unprecedented ironmaking process, i.e., ammonia-based direct reduction. Bypassing ammonia cracking (splitting it into hydrogen and nitrogen), the research demonstrates how using ammonia to produce direct reduced iron brings significant and heretofore unrecognized advantages. This novel approach sheds light on future sustainable ironmaking. Further work will look to vary different aspects of the process so that it can be used on an industrial scale.

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Researcher

Ma Yanis group leader of ‘Sustainable Synthesis of Materials’ and deputy group leader of ‘Mechanism Based Alloy Design’ at the Max Planck Institute für Eisenforschung. He has previously been a researcher at RWTH Aachen University where he completed his doctorate (2019). His main research interests include sustainable metallurgy and materials, the application of synchrotron radiation in materials science and atom probe tomography. Ma Yan received the German Research Foundation’s Walter Benjamin Grant in 2021.

Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung

Novel alloys for automotive lightweight design and airplane turbines, materials for sustainable energy conversion and storage, and the development of big data and machine learning methods – these are just a few examples of the research areas that are being investigated by the scientists of the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung. The team of engineers, material scientists, physicists, and chemists develops tailored materials and methods for mobility, energy, infrastructure, and information. To this end, the researchers study complex materials with atomic precision under real environmental conditions.