Hyundai Steel selects ENERGIRON technology for major green steel project in US

• 2.5 mnt/year DR plant to produce hot and cold DRI
• Hyundai Steel announces $5.8 billion investment in sustainable steelmaking

This ambitious project will include a direct reduction plant featuring the cutting-edge ENERGIRON technology, jointly developed by Tenova and Danieli, to be fully integrated with a steel mill on approximately 1,700 acres within the River Plex Mega Park, near Donaldsonville, Louisiana, USA.

The ENERGIRON direct reduction plant will be the second of its kind in the US, with an annual capacity of 2.5 mnt/year of hot and cold DRI. It will feature zero reformer ENERGIRON technology, and will deliver DRI with 94% metallisation and 2.5% carbon content.

Designed to be future-ready, the plant will also be equipped with carbon capture technology and is prepared for the use of hydrogen as a reducing gas, making it the most sustainable steelmaking solution currently accessible on the market.

Pneumatic transport system

The plant will convey hot DRI through the HYTEMP pneumatic transport system to the adjacent steelmaking shop and charge the hot product into two EAFs at temperatures exceeding 600°C, optimising thermal energy utilisation and significantly reducing steel production operating costs (OpEx).

“This important order confirms the choice of the market,” stated Stefano Maggiolino, CEO of Tenova HYL, “showing the technological advantages of ENERGIRON and its capacity to meet the requirements of steel makers in the US in terms of OpEx and sustainability.”

Marco Lapasin, Danieli VP Centro Metallics, said: “It is an important technological achievement for us to provide a system that is flexible for the use of gas and capable of feeding two EAFs with an intrinsically safe and reliable solution such as HYTEMP.”

ENERGIRON, jointly developed by Tenova and Danieli, is an innovative and sustainable DR technology that has been consistently improving steel production efficiency and quality since 2006. It is designed to use different types of reducing gas sources or pure H2 to reduce iron ores into metallic iron for its use in melting facilities for producing a wide set of high-quality steels.