HBIS is producing DRI by using more than 60% of hydrogen

In the picture, the Italian, Mexican and Chinese Tenova team.

ENERGIRON® technology has set a new milestone in Green Steel production

Chinese HBZX High Tech, part of Hebei Iron & Steel Group – HBIS, is the first worldwide steelmaker producing DRI using more than 60% Hydrogen in the feed gas mix, on industrial basis. This happened at the HBZX plant, in Xuan Hua, Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, where a new, 600,000 tpy, Zero Reformer, ENERGIRON® direct reduction plant has been supplied and achieved continuous, stable, and safely production with outstanding quality.

This is an outstanding achievement, since the plant is the first hydrogen-enriched gas-powered DRI industrial production facility in the world and represents a significant accomplishment for the Chinese steel industry, being also the first green gas-based DRI plant in the country, paving the way to the transition from the carbon-based BF route to gas-based DRI technology and electric steelmaking.

The ENERGIRON® direct reduction technology, jointly developed by Tenova and Danieli, allows the highest targets in terms of energy efficiency, product quality and environmental compliance, thanks to use of hydrogen as reducing agent up to 100%. With a CO₂ release as low as 250 kg/ton of DRI, the HBIS plant will be the greenest industrial DRI plant in the world. Furthermore, the carbon dioxide is selectively recovered by a CO₂ removal unit included in the basic ENERGIRON® DR technology process scheme, and part of it will be reutilized in downstream processes (carbon capture and use or storage CCU/CCS).
This would lead to a final net emission of just about 125 kg of CO₂ per ton of DRI.