Life cycle impacts of induction furnace technology for crude steel production: case study

ABSTRACT

Recent years have seen an increase in interest in steelmaking from scrap because it has the potential to lessen the environmental effect of steelmaking as a recycling process. This study provides the comprehensive assessment of the environmental impacts of steel produced in facilities utilizing electric arc furnace (EAF) and induction furnace (IF) technology. Since there has not been any previous research comparing these effects of these two steelmaking processes, which use scrap as a raw material, this study used the LCA approach to analyze the environmental impacts. A local Turkish steelmaking facility for IF provided the necessary inventory data. Compared to EAF in the rest of the world (4.75x10⁵), steel produced by IF has a better overall single score result (3x10⁵), and IF also emits 7.3% fewer CO₂-equivalent (GHG) emissions while using 21.8% less water. In terms of the consumption of mineral and fossil resources and the impacts on global warming, steel produced with IF does have an advantage over steel produced with EAF. The source of electrical supply, along with water consumption and global warming, is responsible for the majority of environmental effects. The IF’s single score drops to 2.63x10⁵ when European electricity supplies are used in its substitute. This demonstrates that lowering CO₂ emissions during the production of electricity is essential for lowering the carbon footprint of steel products and numerous other goods that include steel in their supply chains.

KEYWORDS:

• Life cycle assessment
• steel production
• environmental impacts of steel production
• induction furnace
• electric arc furnace
• global warming potential

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Bilecik Iron and Steel Works Industry and Trade Co. for their contribution to inventory analysis. It has been informed by the IF facility that significant steps have been taken to reduce carbon and water footprints at the IF facility after the date of data acquisition. The authors would also like to thank TUBITAK Marmara Research Center Environment and Cleaner Production Institute for their permission to access the LCA database.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Credit authorship contribution statement

Aysegul Avinal: Conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, writing – original draft preparation, visualization. Pinar Ergenekon: Conceptualization, validation, writing – review and editing, supervision.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/15567036.2022.2143946