Greenhouse gas balance for stainless steel production further improved

Dordrecht (ots) - Stainless steel recycling is considered to be a sustainable
way to save CO2 in the globally growing steel production. As early as 2010,
Fraunhofer UMSICHT researchers determined a savings potential of more than 4.5 t
CO2 per ton of blend on behalf of the Oryx Stainless Group. More recent
calculations by the UMSICHT team even come to savings of over 6.7 t CO2 -eq. per
ton of blend for the reference year 2021. The results show: The recycling of
stainless steel scrap has great potential to save greenhouse gases.

As the demand for stainless steel continues to rise, a responsible and efficient
use of limited global resources is becoming increasingly important. One option
for steelmakers to save greenhouse gases is to produce new stainless steel from
high-quality secondary raw material blends instead of primary raw materials.
Secondary raw materials are upgraded by combining differently alloyed stainless
steel scrap to produce blends. These blends being in accordance with the
technical specifications needed are used in steel mills as the main inputs in an
electric arc furnace (EAF) process. To a small extent, ferroalloys can be used
for analytical fine-tuning.

Greater CO2 savings after update of the greenhouse gas balance

In the project, the UMSICHT researchers have now calculated the greenhouse gas
balance of the recycling of stainless steel from the Oryx Stainless Group at the
Dordrecht and Mülheim an der Ruhr sites - analogous to the study structure of
2010 - for the reference year 2021. The results show that compared with the
calculation at that time, the greenhouse gas savings continue to increase. A
corresponding study for the site in Thailand is in progress at UMSICHT.

Total savings by the Oryx Stainless Group at the two sites in 2021 amount to
around 3,015,000 t CO2 -eq. - approximately one million metric tons CO2 eq. more
than in 2009 (2,026,000 t CO2 eq.). One reason is the comparatively higher
output volume. The average weighted savings have also increased to 6.7 t CO2
eq./t blend in 2021. Thus, the results also retroactively show larger savings
for the year 2009.

"In order to be able to compare the values meaningfully and reliably with our
earlier calculations, we have also recalculated the data for 2009 again with our
new model," explains Dr.-Ing. Daniel Maga, Group Manager Sustainability
Assessment at Fraunhofer UMSICHT. "Among other things, the most recent data sets
for the raw materials of primary steel production show a higher carbon footprint
and the current electricity mix for 2020 shows a lower CO2 footprint."

Continuously developing stainless steel production