Steel industry will have a wide range of green hydrogen application scenarios
Time：2022/6/9 13:29:46 Tag：Green hydrogen，pillar industry，national economy，steel industry
Recently, guizhou, Shandong and other places issued documents calling for low-carbon and green transformation of "high energy consumption, high emissions" industries. Guizhou Provincial People's Government issued the Guidance on Strengthening the Management of "High Energy, High Energy and High Energy" Projects, which stated that by 2025, the carbon emission intensity of key "high energy and high energy" industries will be significantly reduced, and the green and low-carbon development capacity will be significantly enhanced. In Shandong Province, the Implementation Plan for Energy Efficiency Transformation and Upgrading of High energy consumption, High energy consumption and high energy consumption Industries clearly states that the high energy consumption and high energy consumption industries should carry out green and low-carbon technology research and promote green and low-carbon technological achievements.
According to the ecological environment in June 2021 issued "about strengthening the construction of energy intensive and highly polluting source project of ecological environment control guidance", "projects" project temporarily according to the coal and electricity, petrochemical, chemical, steel, non-ferrous metal smelting industry and building materials and so on six categories, among them, the steel industry as a pillar industry of the national economy, there is a pressing demand for low carbon transformation, The application of green hydrogen energy will be an important path for its transformation. Li Xinchuang, party secretary of the Metallurgical Industry Planning and Research Institute, said in an interview with the media that under the increasingly severe pressure of low-carbon transition, China's steel industry will have a wide range of green hydrogen application scenarios.
Green hydrogen has been widely applied in the key field of "double carbon" steel industry
At present, China is speeding up the formulation of carbon peak carbon neutrality "1+N" policy system. To achieve the goal of "dual carbon" through green and low-carbon transformation has become the mission of the development of all walks of life, among which the steel industry is an important field in the process of transformation. According to Li Xinchuang, China's iron and steel industry has a large volume base, coal and coke consumption dominated the energy consumption structure, and the implementation of the "double carbon" target is short and heavy task. Technological innovation is the hard support for the low-carbon transformation of steel, but also the key to promote the implementation of the "double carbon" target.
In Li xinchuang's opinion, the application of hydrogen energy in steel industry mainly includes hydrogen metallurgy, hydrogen energy transportation and steel rolling production.
In the field of hydrogen metallurgy, Li xinchuang said hydrogen can be used in steel smelting, which can realize low-carbon iron making from the source and has multiple applications in the smelting process. In the sintering process, hydrogen can be used as sintering fuel to reduce the consumption of high carbon energy such as coke powder/coal powder. In blast furnace process, hydrogen can be used as a reducing agent for blast furnace injection. In addition, hydrogen energy can also be used in non-blast furnace ironmaking processes such as direct reduction and melting reduction.
In the field of hydrogen transportation, the iron and steel industry belongs to the heavy logistics industry. The logistics demand of long process iron and steel enterprises can reach 4 ~ 5 times of crude steel output per ton, and the annual foreign transportation volume of China's iron and steel industry can reach 4 ~ 5 billion tons. "As an effective alternative to traditional energy, hydrogen energy can provide effective support for the green and low-carbon development of the steel industry in transportation and logistics." Li xinchuang said that in addition to the replacement of traditional energy by hydrogen energy in the field of commercial vehicles, non-road mobile machinery and railway locomotives used by iron and steel enterprises that consume traditional energy can be used as the application scenarios of hydrogen energy.
In the field of steel rolling production, Li Xinchuang pointed out that hydrogen energy is mainly used in cold rolling production line, cold rolling annealing process needs hydrogen as annealing protection gas. "For example, a hood annealing furnace usually uses hydrogen or a mixture of hydrogen and nitrogen as protective gas. The hydrogen consumption of an all-hydrogen hood annealing furnace is about 3m3/t to 4.5m3/t. In the production line of continuous annealing unit or galvanizing unit, the gas in the annealing furnace is usually a reductive protective gas composed of nitrogen and hydrogen. In order to ensure a certain furnace pressure, continuous injection is required, and the hydrogen consumption of the continuous annealing furnace is about 1m3/t ~ 1.5m3/t.
Opportunities and challenges coexist and it is imperative to promote demonstration of key technologies
In recent years, with the rapid development of hydrogen energy industry, the application of hydrogen energy in iron and steel industry has been put on the agenda. Li Xinchuang said that under the background of low-carbon transformation, green hydrogen has been applied in many scenarios in the steel industry, but it also faces many challenges and difficulties. For example, in the field of hydrogen metallurgy, green hydrogen is less economical and competitive in metallurgical utilization compared with conventional fossil energy due to its high production, storage and transportation costs.
"Hydrogen metallurgy is a cutting-edge innovation technology, which still needs a lot of scientific and technological breakthroughs, and some core equipment is at a low level of localization." Li Xinchuang believes that at present, there are few green hydrogen resources that can be used for metallurgy, and domestic industrial hydrogen exhaust gas has been used in corresponding ways. If it is used for hydrogen metallurgy, there is a potential risk of loss of early project investment.
In the field of hydrogen transportation, Li Xinchuang said that transportation logistics, as a strong industry related to iron and steel, is an important link for hydrogen energy to replace traditional energy. However, the application of hydrogen transportation in the iron and steel industry faces many constraints due to the constraints of technology, industry, cost, policies and standards. In terms of technology, hydrogen fuel cell is the core component of hydrogen commercial vehicle, and its main raw materials, such as carbon paper and catalyst, are imported. In terms of industry, the industrial chain and supply chain system of hydrogen energy is not sound enough. There is no complete and efficient supply chain system and mature technical support for hydrogen production, hydrogen storage, hydrogen transport and hydrogenation. In terms of cost, precious metals platinum and flexible graphite bipolar plates are widely used in fuel cell reactor catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells, which are technically difficult and lack of industrialization, resulting in high overall cost of the reactor. In terms of policies and standards, it is urgent to implement systematic hydrogen energy policies, and improve and supplement relevant standards of hydrogen energy transportation links.
Promote large-scale commercial application of green hydrogen
As for the acquisition of green hydrogen, Li Xinchuang believes that green hydrogen refers to hydrogen produced by means of electrolysis of water using carbon-free energy such as nuclear energy and renewable energy, and the hydrogen production process does not produce carbon emissions. "For green hydrogen to play a full role in the carbon neutral pathway, it must be available on a large scale and commercially." He emphasized that there are still three challenges in the production of green hydrogen: first, it is not economical to produce hydrogen from water electrolysis; Second, hydrogen energy response speed, safety and electric-hydrogen-electric energy conversion efficiency are not high; Third, hydrogen energy storage and transportation is difficult and costly.
In order to promote the popularization and application of green hydrogen in the steel industry, li xinchuang advice, to carry out the "double carbon" target under the iron and steel industry the hydrogen preparation, storage, transportation and applied basic research, in landscape abundant hydropower resources, focus on promoting low energy consumption long life key technology such as renewable energy water electrolysis hydrogen production demonstration, gradually expand the scale of the demonstration, promote low-carbon clean hydrogen technology and equipment level. At the same time, it is necessary to explore the establishment of new energy hydrogen production bases around iron and steel enterprises with large hydrogen application scale.
In addition, the industrialization of advanced and applicable hydrogen storage materials will be accelerated, efforts will be made to promote independent research and development and manufacturing of core components and key equipment, and breakthroughs will be made in key technologies for high-pressure hydrogen bottles used for transportation of 50MPa or more, Li said. At the same time, demonstration applications of hydrogen blending, hydrogen production and hydrogenation integrated stations in natural gas pipelines and hydrogen carriers will be explored.