Research and Development: Climate-Friendly Steelmaking

The decarbonization of steelmaking is a major challenge for the entire industry and calls for innovative approaches. voestalpine collaborates with both universities and partner entities in order to drive pioneering solutions through R&D work.

In the longer term, hydrogen as a reducing agent is to replace the currently used direct reduction bridge technology based on natural gas. The hydrogen must be produced sustainably, i.e., solely from water using renewable energies. In order to research the technology and its feasibility for the steel industry, the world’s largest hydrogen electrolyzer plant was built and successfully started up in 2019 at the voestalpine Group’s Linz facility in Austria. It is here that tests are conducted to determine whether this technology is suitable for producing green hydrogen on a major industrial scale. The EUR 18 million project, which is supported by the European Union, also explores the potential of making network services available and of balancing fluctuations in the electricity grid.

The groundbreaking SuSteel project serves to conduct research on another direct steelmaking technology using hydrogen plasma. In January 2020, the pilot plant in Donawitz, Austria, succeeded for the first time in carrying out a hydrogen plasma smelting reduction. Current work aims to optimize the facility in order to enable continuous operations and to adjust it to different types of iron ore.


About voestalpine

In its business segments, voestalpine is a globally leading steel and technology group with a unique combination of materials and processing expertise. voestalpine, which operates globally, has around 500 Group companies and locations in more than 50 countries on all five continents. It has been listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange since 1995. With its top-quality products and system solutions, it is a leading partner to the automotive and consumer goods industries as well as the aerospace and oil & gas industries, and is also the world market leader in railway systems, tool steel, and special sections. voestalpine is fully committed to the global climate goals and is working intensively to develop technologies which will allow it to decarbonize and reduce its CO2 emissions over the long term. In the business year 2019/20, the Group generated revenue of EUR 12.7 billion, with an operating result (EBITDA) of EUR 1.2 billion; it had about 49,000 employees worldwide.

Facts

50 Countries on all 5 continents
500 Group companies and locations
49,000 Employees worldwide

Earnings FY 2019/20

€ 12.7 Billion

Revenue

€ 1.2 Billion

EBITDA

To the Top
Close