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For steel, even though there seems to be more of a general consensus among industry players about the decarbonisation pathway to follow (a transition towards hydrogen-based DRI and EAF), currently there are not many available products labelled or referred to as low-carbon other than recycled steel (which still needs to account for the energy-related emissions associated with transport and the energy used in the EAF process). Some of the definitions used by biggest steel manufacturers are outlined, together with the European Steel Association and a sample of peer-reviewed research papers (85).
Industry
Tata Steel plans to transition into producing “green steel”, mainly by eventually switching to H2-based DRI [86]. In the meantime, they offer a range of “green steel solutions”, such as Zeremis® Carbon Lite, which is a “certificate-based, low carbon emission steel solution offering the potential for up to 90% reduction in CO2e intensity”[87].
ArcelorMittal claims to have several projects that contribute to “CO2 savings” in steel, which would enable them to sell “green steel credits” for their flat steel products made from iron ore in a blast furnace [88]. These CO2 savings come from steel produced using one or several technologies: mostly involving green hydrogen for both blast furnaces and DRI-EAF [89], but also CCU [90] and biomass [91].
Thyssenkrupp also uses the term of green steel to refer to steel produced with green hydrogen [92]. While not directly using the term “low-carbon”, the company does present a CCU project that recycles emissions, and a steel product called bluemint® that is less carbon-intensive due to alternative iron carriers in the blast furnace that reduce the amount of coal needed [93].
EUROFER, the European steel association, presents a map of “low-carbon emissions projects”. Projects that include circular economy considerations, H2 or electricity-based metallurgy, carbon usage or CCS are all listed, but there is no standard when it comes to the definition of low-carbon steel, or the emission reductions necessary to qualify as such [94].
Academia
In academia particularly, the term “low-carbon steel” could lead to misunderstandings. Throughout this work, the term “low-carbon” is used to signal a production process with significant CO2 emission reductions when compared to the standard production method. However, when it comes to steel chemistry, since steel is an alloy of iron and carbon, the term low-carbon could be used to refer to a steel type with actual low contents of the element carbon (C), known as ferrite steel [95].
Papers researching steel with less carbon-intensive production processes generally use the term “green steel”. Some of them used it to only mean steel produced with green hydrogen [96],[97], while others use the term “low-carbon steel” in the sense of emission reductions and include blue steel (with CCS) and brown steel (with biomass) [98]. It is worth noting that the latter study does not refer to European industry but global, with a focus on developing countries.