HYBRIT, or Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology, is a joint project with Europe’s largest iron ore producer, LKAB, and one of Europe’s largest electricity producers, Vattenfall. The technology replaces coking coal, traditionally needed for ore-based steel production, with hydrogen. By using hydrogen gas as a reducing agent, the by-product of the process is water rather than carbon dioxide – cutting CO
2 emissions from steel production. In effect, revolutionizing steel with the world’s first fossil-free steel making technology.
This ambitious project is already underway with the building of the pilot plant in Luleå, Northern Sweden, which will be up and running in 2020. The goal is to have a solution for fossil-free steel by 2035 and become totally fossil-free by 2045.
With this new process taken into use, SSAB will be able to eliminate 10% of the CO
2 emissions in Sweden and 7% in Finland. We hope to set the precedent for more sustainable steel production all over the world in order to combat climate change.