Czech steelmaker boosts scrap use

Czech Republic-based steel producer Trinecké železárny says its blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steelmaking complex melted nearly 800,000 metric tons of scrap metal in 2021, including all of its own metal scrap generated via its production process.

The company also says its blast furnace “recycles over 100,000 metric tons of separated metal-bearing fractions contained in slag each year.”

Ceslav Marek, the firm’s director of production, says, “These are used to replace natural iron ores.”

Trinecké says it has been “striving for several years” to attain “maximum possible use of b-products of metallurgical production by recycling.” The company says the use of slag and metallurgical gases also yields “significant CO₂ savings.”

Regarding slag, the company says it supplies granulated blast furnace slag, which is produced during the pig ironmaking process, to cement producers. “Last year, we supplied nearly 600, 000 metric tons of material to cement plants,” Marek says. “That means that we have saved approximately 550,000 metric tons of CO₂ that would otherwise have been generated by burning limestone and clay during [cement] production.”

Granulated slag also saved the construction industry nearly 250,000 metric tons of natural aggregates in 2021, with that amount replaced by slag from Trinecké železárny in the production of concrete. Also being put into practice is the use of steel slag and iron oxide dust particles (arising during iron production) to produce a special heavyweight concrete, the firm says.

“We have been building our business on the principles of sustainable business for a long time,” says Jan Czudek, CEO of Trinecké železárny. “Now, the topic has come into the spotlight in all fields. Metallurgy is one of the most demanding in terms of raw material and energy consumption.  That is why we strive for maximum use of all by-products of our production.”

The Trinec complex also uses more than 90 percent of the metallurgical gases it generates during production (from the blast furnace, converter and coke oven), replacing the consumption of up to 500,000 tons of thermal coal or 450 million cubic meters of natural gas, according to Trinecké železárny.

Czudek calls the company one of the leaders in the circular economy in comparison with many other firms in the European metallurgical sector.