Towards the Circularity of the EU Steel Industry: Modern Technologies for the Recycling of the Dusts and Recovery of Resources

Abstract

The EU steel industry accounts for a crude steel production of 140 Mt/y, provided by the integrated (57%) and electric (43%) routes, which respectively require up to 6.0 and 0.6 MWh/tCrudeSteel of energy input, and emits on average 1.85 and 0.4 tCO2/tCrudeSteel. The mitigation of such CO2 emissions is crucial, and would involve the direct avoidance of carbon, improvement of energy efficiency, and carbon capture. However, the environmental burden of the steel industry cannot be limited to this, given the very large amount (approximately 5 Mt) of residues landfilled every year in the EU. This practice cannot be sustained anymore, since it represents a detrimental waste of resources and burden to the environment. These aspects require prompt action to meet the Green Deal goals envisioned for 2030. This review paper aims to provide an overview of the main state-of-the-art technologies commercially (and not) available for the effective treatment of a wide variety of residues. To enrich this overview with further potential candidates towards a more sustainable steel manufacturing process, the combined application of two technologies (a plasma reactor and a RecoDust unit for the recovery of metals and minerals, respectively) at TRL 5-6 is also investigated here.