Abstract:
Steel industry is one of the most important sectors for country's economy, its production supplies many consumer goods plants, in addition to being fundamental for infrastructure works. The tendency for steel production is increase, as well as consumption, and it cannot be different because many countries there is much to be done and steel will be fundamental. All this progress has been accompanied by the emission of a large amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, mainly by burning fossil fuels. The sector is responsible for about 7% of all CO2 emitted in the world, 69% comes from burning coal and coke in blast furnace. This is not a recent problem, since the world energy matrix is based on burning fossil fuels and the steel production route that was consolidated, due to the high productivity, was the blast furnace (72% of the production). Several agreements and meetings have been held around the world with the aim of mitigating and reducing CO2 emissions. European countries are one-step ahead, as their agreements are better established and goals are well defined, so that, most of works and researches in the area of steel production with reduced emissions comes from there. Researches shows that the main alternatives for low emission steel production are: use of biomass replacing fossil fuels (total or partial); steel production using scrap, via electric arc furnace; use of hydrogen to reduce iron ore (in PCI and DRI). Therefore, this work aims to show these three alternatives studied and applied in steel production in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, it intends to stimulate discussions about the future of steel production with emission restrictions, seeking mainly short and medium term solutions that maintain the competitiveness of steel mills.
