Promote "gold content" with "green content"-Hebei's steel industry achieves new breakthroughs in green transformation

Hebei is a major steel province, and the steel industry is the main front for environmental protection in Hebei Province. In 2022, Hebei launched A comprehensive A-A campaign for the environmental performance of steel companies, forcing the steel industry to transform and upgrade. Currently, 39 steel companies have completed A-A environmental protection, ranking first in the country.

Under the guidance of the concept of green development, the "gold content" of steel enterprises in Hebei Province has also continued to increase.

Emission reduction creates a new green look

Walking into Delong Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. located in Xindu District, Xingtai City, green plants, flowers and creative sculptures can be seen everywhere. Abandoned factories and idle land vacated by enterprise transformation and upgrading have become landscapes. Many tourists come for sightseeing.

Strolling through the "garden-style" factory, Huo Zenghe, the company's director of environmental protection, was filled with emotion: "In the past, the workshop was full of fire, hot air, and heavy smoke. Workshop workers had to wear high-temperature resistant overalls to operate. It took less than 2 hours to change shifts, and a visit was impossible."

Aerial photo of Delong Steel Co., Ltd. Photo by Yue Wenting

Since 2014, Delong Steel has invested more than 4 billion yuan in in-depth environmental protection management. In 2020, Delong Steel Company became Hebei's first long-process steel enterprise with Class A environmental performance, reducing nitrogen oxide emissions by more than 100 tons every year. In the same year, Delong Steel Cultural Park became an AAAA tourist attraction.

"The brand of 'Environmental Performance Class A Enterprise' is our intangible asset. In case of special periods such as severely polluted weather and off-peak production, emission reduction measures can be taken independently. Production is relatively stable, further increasing the competitiveness and comprehensive strength of the company." Yang Shengmin, director of the company's Party and Mass Comprehensive Department, said.

The effectiveness of environmental governance has also enhanced the reputation of Delong Steel Company and brought more development opportunities to the company. Yang Shengmin said that every year, steel companies and environmental protection companies come to benchmark study continuously, receiving nearly 10,000 people in the first half of 2024. At the same time, the company's technical team is often invited to provide consulting and guidance services to other companies. Regular and multi-level communication provides a platform for enterprises to grasp industry development trends and market trends, and promotes sustainable development of enterprises.

Seeking upgrades and opening up new space for development

In the ultra-thick and high-strength steel plate production workshop of Hebei Puyang Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. located in Wu 'an City, red billets move back and forth on the roller table and will be used to manufacture key components of high-end coal mining machinery after processing. At the same time, the company's ultra-low emission management and control integrated platform monitors real-time emission data of air pollutants in production.

"Compared with traditional production lines, the upgraded automated production system has more extensive application scenarios, faster parameter feedback, lower carbon product production, and can clearly indicate comprehensive information on the environmental impact of the product throughout its life cycle. Green and low-carbon transformation and development." said Li Jianchun, director of the company's environmental protection department.

The scenery inside the factory area of Hebei Puyang Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. Photo by Yue Wenting

In recent years, Puyang Steel has taken emission reduction and efficiency creation as its fundamental starting point, and has continued to consolidate the effect of ultra-low emission transformation. It has invested A total of more than 8 billion yuan to steadily explore and solidly advance it from clean transportation, monitoring and monitoring, intelligent manufacturing, and low-carbon development., it will achieve A environmental performance in 2023. In the process of improving equipment and environmental protection levels, the company has achieved management innovation, process innovation, and product innovation.

Li Jianchun said: "The company has successively upgraded a large number of high-end steel production equipment, and the operating stability of production and environmental protection equipment has been significantly improved, providing a strong basis for the development of new energy steel, electrical steel, high-end customized modulated steel and other products. support."

Brave innovation leads the industry in new directions

Being at the site of the 1.2 million-ton hydrogen metallurgy demonstration project of Zhang Xuan Technology of Hegang Group, I don't feel that this is a steel factory, but rather a chemical park. The traditional blast furnace was replaced by a silver-white hydrogen-based shaft furnace full of technology.

Compared with the traditional long-process model of "blast furnace + converter", this project uses "hydrogen-based shaft furnace + high-efficiency electric furnace". Hydrogen in coke oven gas acts as a reducing agent and process fuel to react with oxidized pellets to produce directly reduced iron (DRI), and DRI products are then transferred to electric furnace to smelt "green steel". Compared with long-process processes of the same production scale, the first phase of the project can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 800,000 tons per year, and the emission reduction ratio reaches 70%.

China Iron and Steel Association believes that this project is an important milestone in the transformation from traditional "carbon metallurgy" to new "hydrogen metallurgy" in the history of China and even the history of world steel. As pioneers, there is no experience at home and abroad to learn from, and the project needs to wade through its own path from construction to operation.

Li Lijie, chief operation officer of Zhang Xuan Technology's hydrogen metallurgy operation area, led the team to immerse themselves in the 100-meter shaft furnace production site day and night, and finally broke through the bottleneck problem of full-process hydrogen metallurgy technology in tens of thousands of tests. Li Lijie introduced that their team has applied for 59 hydrogen metallurgy related patents and participated in the preparation of 7 national and industry standards. The metallization rate of DRI products has stabilized at more than 94%.

"Not long ago, we also successfully used green hydrogen as a reducing gas to achieve stable production, verifying the technical feasibility of 'green electricity-green hydrogen-green steel' production, enriching the raw material gas source of hydrogen metallurgy, marking the exploration of Zhang Xuan Technology. All-green hydrogen, near-zero hydrocarbon metallurgy technology has taken an important step." Li Lijie said.