The planet’s resource is finite, and the European Union who consistently takes a proactive role in promoting environmental sustainability concluded that effective management of the resource and recycling, as well as the eco-friendly products, will bring a positive impact on the economy. Environmental sustainability is not just a boutique concept anymore – it has now become a matter of essentiality, our survival.

Producing zero environmental impact in our everyday life is for the benefit of all life on earth. The plastic disaster triggered across all corners of the globe is already changing our lives – at major coffee shops, take-out cups are discouraged, and the plastic straws are disappearing. More consumers are voluntarily backing this trend, and as a result, industries are changing their policies.

Although it seems there is no direct connection between the steel industry and eco-friendly practice, POSCO is also stepping up its efforts to promote sustainability. Why is a steel company like POSCO trying to go green? POSCO Newsroom reports.

l Steel, the World’s Most Recycled Material

Steel is fully recyclable. Countless other materials get buried or incinerated after use, but steel is rarely discarded and is actually recycled. Since it’s magnetic, steel is easy to separate even when it’s mixed with other waste materials.

For example, recycling one steel can save energy equivalent to that of one washing-machine cycle and one-hour of TV-watching.

Steel is not only recyclable but it also dissolves in high heat to produce high-quality steel. Manufacturing steel this way can save 62% of the energy compared to the conventional manufacturing method, while significantly reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

▲Environmental impact: steel vs aluminum (Source: POSRI estimate based on figures from worldsteel, NSSMC & JISF)

Aluminum can be recycled, but it’s nearly impossible to remove impurities, making it difficult to reuse. When applying the Life Cycle Assessment approach, steel is much more sustainable than aluminum.

l Steel Companies and Environmental Sustainability

One of the quintessential images of a steel mill is that of liquefied iron ‘boiling’ in the furnace. Because steelmaking demands lots of energy, it is hard to associate environmental sustainability with the material. For this very reason, however, the industry is making an extra effort to create an eco-friendly business practice. Technological development effort such as POSCO’s ironmaking technology, FINEX, is one such example.

POSCO’s proprietary technology makes steel stronger and lighter, as is the case with its Giga Steel. Cars made of Giga Steel can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions by boosting fuel efficiency when driving.

POSMAC is a coated steel sheet that’s highly corrosion-resistant. It has a longer service life in severely corrosive environments with chlorine, strong alkaline, high temperature, and humidity. When applied to marine-aquamarine, solar, and wind power tower, the corrosion is minimized, which in turn increases its use period thereby reducing the needs for reconstruction.

POSCO is also taking a proactive role in minimizing the pollutants generated during the steel production. While producing one-ton of steel, approximately 600-700kg of byproducts are made. With 98.4% of such byproducts recycled within and out of POSCO, the recycling rate is superb.

l The Steel Potential to Shape Our Future

The potential of steel is endless. Steel accompanied humanity throughout history, is getting lighter than ever. The steel cans we use today are about 30% thinner than those made in the 1980s. Energy consumption for producing one ton of steel production is steadily declining.

Steel is used in a variety of ways, ranging from light industry products such as steel can for food and beverages to shipbuilding and other heavy industry products. Steel is also excellent for food preservation as well as for preventing surface corrosion for ships, etc.

Cars became lighter, and reducing green gas house also became more viable, through high-efficiency steel products like High Strength Automotive Steel with improved fuel efficiency. An electrical steel sheet with a low iron loss for high-efficiency contributes to the energy efficiency of motors and transformers. In 2017, high-efficiency steel helped reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 614,000 tons.

Also during 2017, granulated blast furnace slag, one of the by-products from steelmaking process, contributed to reducing 8.6 million green gas emission – by being recycled as a cement substitute.

As the post-Paris Climate Summit paradigm prioritizes environmental sustainability, the business leaders are following the suit, expanding environmentally friendly business practice across its diverse sectors. The reason why companies are opting for environmental sustainability is not just for the sake of public interest – the global community is setting the tone for environmental sustainability. The consumer demand for eco-friendly products considering life cycle assessment is also increasing.

Considering the environmental impact, versatile, convenient and recyclable steel is expected to draw more attention in the future both from the industry and consumers.

Pictured here: Scene from one of POSCO’s steel plants

Steel is one of the most common and useful metals. But do you know how it is actually made? Let’s go behind the scenes of one of the world’s leading steelmakers, POSCO, to discover the process of how steel is made.

Pictured here: Gwangyang Works is a world leading works with optimal layout to specialize in the production of automotive steel

The 3 Step Steelmaking Processes

For easier understanding, steel is made through 3 different stages which are ironmaking, steelmaking and rolling (continuous casting processes).

1)      Ironmaking: a process of smelting iron ores into hot metal.

Iron ore and coal are gathered from all around the world and unloaded onto the raw materials dock.

Pictured here: Dock where iron ore and coal are gathered

For proper heat transfusion in the blast furnace, iron and coal must be solidified from their powder form. The process of solidifying iron and coal is called sintering and coking, respectively. The pretreated iron and coal are stacked into layers in a 100m tall blast furnace. Then hot air at 1,200 degrees Celsius is blown into the furnace, causing the coal to burn which melts iron ore into molten iron.

Pictured here: 100m tall blast furnace where iron ore melts into molten iron

 2)      Steelmaking: a process of removing impurities from hot metal to create crude steel.

The molten iron created in the blast furnace contains various impurities that diminish its strength and durability once it is hardened into steel. The molten iron from the blast furnace is transported into a torpedo car and poured into a converter furnace.

Pictured here: The molten iron from the blast furnace is transported into a torpedo car to be taken to a converter furnace

In the converter furnace, pure oxygen is added to burn off substances such as carbon, phosphorous and sulfur to create purified molten steel. At this point, the temperature and substance composition is precisely adjusted to customer’s various demands.

Pictured here: Molten iron being poured into a converter furnace to be purified

Pouring the molten steel into molds and cooling into solid creates a semi-finished material called slabs which are used to make finished steel products.

Pictured here: Molten steel being created into slabs

Solid steel is categorized based on shape. Slabs are wide and flat. Blooms are rectangular bars and billets are thinner, square bars.

3)      Rolling: a process of pressure forming crude steel into various finished products.

The final stage of the steelmaking process involves continuous casting where steel is forged into various steel products. Through the process of rolling, steel can be treated differently to be put to a variety of uses.

Pictured here: Slabs being passed between rollers to turn crude steel into finished products

What is steel used for?

POSCO steel products are used in every part of our daily lives ranging from buildings to smartphones to satellites in space.

The different types of products that can be created include:

1)      Hot-rolled products

2)      Cold-rolled products

3)      Coated Steel

4)      Electrical Steel Plates

5)      Steel Plates

6)      Wire Goods

7)      Stainless Steel

Read on to find out more about the steel products around us.

Hot-rolled products are made from slabs passed through rollers above 1,100 degrees Celsius. These are used for construction materials and pipes in various industries.

Cold-rolled products which are created by making hot rolled products thinner at room temperature are used in general appliances, barrels and automobile frames.

Coated steel which is created by coating cold rolled products with zinc are used in high end appliances, office equipment and automobile exteriors. 

Electrical steel plates are created by adding electrical properties are used in transformers and motors. 

Steel plates which are thick and rectangular in shape are used in large structures such as buildings, vessels and oil pipelines. 

Wired goods are created when billets are passed through a roll with a round hole and is used for automobile tire cords, wires for bridges, piano strings, underwater cables and more. 

When nickel and chrome are added to steel it produces stainless steel which are used in kitchen appliances, medical equipment, exterior walls and roofs of buildings. 

POSCO Ushers in Era of New, Eco-friendly Technologies 

Pictured here: Pohang Works, the root and heart of the Korean steel industry.

POSCO was the first in the world to use a more economical and eco-friendly method of steelmaking compared to a blast furnace. The FINEX method uses iron ore and coal in its original form, skipping the coking and sintering processes. 

Pohang Works is driving innovations in steel technology and leading in production of high quality products. It operates a state of the arts R&D center and production monitoring center that monitors production 24/7. 

In addition, there is an Environmental Center that monitors emissions of pollutants in real time. 

Click on the videos below to see the full steelmaking process at POSCO’s Gwangyang Works and Pohang Works, the root and heart of the Korean steel industry.