Hyundai Steel is pushing the eco-friendly technology from substituting blast furnace fuel with cattle manure.
On December 16, Hyundai Steel announced that the company signed an MOU to promote the production and use of cattle mature as solid fuel for blast furnaces. The signing was attended by officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation as well as Hyundai Steel President & CEO An Tong-il.
Under the agreement, the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will provide the policy support needed to produce solid fuel made from cattle manure, perform quality control of the fuel and promote its use, while the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation will carry out production and distribution. For its part, Hyundai Steel will provide necessary technology and adopt the new, green fuel for routine use at its steel mills.
In cooperation with the organizations, starting from 2022, Hyundai Steel will use cattle manure as a heat source for drying refractories in the main runners (ducts for releasing molten iron) in its blast furnaces. The new fuel will be tested in Hyundai Steel’s production facilities before it is used as a blast furnace fuel.
One ton of the new cattle manure fuel is made from four tons of livestock waste and results in 1.5 tCO₂reduction of greenhouse gases, and it is estimated that there will be several economic benefits including replacement of fuel imports.
Around 22 million tons of cattle manure are produced in Korea every year, but most of this waste have been used as compost, resulting in over 2 million tCO₂of greenhouse gas annually.
Hyundai Steel have developed the technology that converting cattle manure into fuel for steelmaking in 2012 and obtained a patent application in 2014. Demonstrating the new technology conduction in 2014, the technology has been undergoing further development for functional diversification.
Challenges in the collection of cattle manure, its conversion into solid fuel, and cost management have delayed the commercialization of cattle manure fuel. However, with the full support of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, the efforts made over the last nine years have begun to bear fruit.
“The production partnership between the livestock industry and steelmakers is a step in the right direction towards enhancing social value and creating new economic ecosystems” Hyundai Steel CEO An Tong-il said on the MOU. “I hope that this partnership expands the use of manure as a renewable energy source, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and contributes to Korea’s future success in net-zero efforts and to efforts by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs’ to reduce the amount of unused livestock manure.”