2018 - a sample of
industry 4.0

04 The efficient use of natural resources and high recycling rates

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Our environmental care

Our environmental care

“We continue to improve environmental care at all levels of our organisation.”

Since 2001, we have an environmental management system in place that meets the requirements of the international standard ISO 14001. The environmental management system compels us to tackle our environmental care in a structured manner, starting with the identification of the main environmental aspects that command our attention. Each year, our environmental care system undergoes an audit by an external independent organisation that establishes whether we continue to meet all the requirements and whether we continue to improve in terms of environmental control. The ISO 14001 certificate constitutes a guarantee to all external stakeholders, such as local residents, surrounding businesses, local authorities, suppliers and customers, that ‘corporate sustainability’ and ‘sustainable business practices’ are not empty words to us.

First collective ISO 14001 certificate for the ArcelorMittal Belgium cluster

11/‘18

follow-up audit ISO 14001 at ArcelorMittal Gent

12/‘18

certification and extension audit ISO 14001 for ArcelorMittal Liège

01/‘19

ISO 14001 certificate officially granted to the entire ArcelorMittal Belgium cluster

ISO 14001 certificate

We endeavour to convert all substances that are produced and used during the production of steel into products that can serve as raw materials in other industries or that have a useful application.

We endeavour to convert all substances that are produced and used during the production of steel into products that can serve as raw materials in other industries or that have a useful application.

We endeavour to convert all substances that are produced and used during the production of steel into products that can serve as raw materials in other industries or that have a useful application.

By-products are materials that are either reused as raw materials, or used as synthetic finished product, as an alternative for natural stone.

Slag

An important source of by-products is liquid slag formed at high temperature in our production process. The slag that arises in the blast furnace is cornified with the help of powerful water jets into granulated slag / blast furnace sand. The cement industry mixes our blast furnace sand with cement clinker to prepare metallurgical cement (CEM III). This is used in concrete for hydraulic engineering pillars, and as cement for applications that require rapid hardening. A small proportion of air-cooled blast furnace slag is used in road construction as foundation material and as basic material for rock wool.

In the steel shop, LD slag is formed. After deferrization, this steel slag is sieved into different grain sizes, for conversion into commercial finished products. LD slag can be used for the sustainable hardening of areas such as car park sites, roads, paths and drives. Coarser fractions of over 40 mm are in turn a fully-fledged alternative for broken gravel and for hydraulic engineering works, such as firming the bank of the Western Scheldt. A proportion of the finer fraction, smaller than 10 mm, is recycled via the sinter plant in the blast furnace, as a substitute for limestone.

Gases

In the coking plant, tar, benzol and sulphur are separated from the coke oven gas in the by-products plants. Once separated, they are used as raw material in the chemical industry.

Coke oven gas, blast furnace gas and converter gas have energetic properties making them suitable as fuel in our production processes, as a substitute for natural gas. The proportion that we cannot use is sent to the neighbouring power plant of ENGIE, to be converted into electricity.

Residues are primarily residues containing ferrous oxide and carbon, which are inevitably formed during our production processes and are separated from a gas or water flow in our dust separator or water treatment plants.

Raw materials

We do our utmost to recycle our residue materials as much as possible, whilst taking into account the process engineering requirements and their possible impact on the environment. By reusing materials, we save on expensive raw materials, such as iron ore and coal, we make more efficient use of natural resources and we avoid the need to dump the materials concerned. In the autumn of 2017, we started the construction of a wind dyke along the canal to ‘break’ the western wind and hence limit the generation of dust. The construction was carried out with inert residues and steel slag. The dyke was completed in the autumn of 2018; the planting was performed in the spring of 2019.

Scrap

Both internally recycled and externally bought scrap material is melted in the steel shop’s converter, where we produce liquid steel that is subsequently solidified into steel slabs.

New scrap and slag quay

In 2016, North Sea Port started on the construction of a new scrap and slag quay at ArcelorMittal Gent. The new scrap quay allows us to optimise the existing scrap transport by using inland waterways and marine transport as much as possible instead of road haulage. Each year, it saves 15,000 consignments of scrap by road haulage. The slag quay provides an optimisation of the internal transport and makes it possible for the slag to be loaded directly into seagoing vessels. The quay for unloading scrap was taken into use in November 2017. The section for loading residue materials and slag on inland vessels has been in service since September 2018.

Waste materials are materials that do not easily lend themselves to recycling. We gather them in a selective manner and then dispose of them using accredited processors.

Wood

Clean and pure wood residues, for example from packaging, are selectively gathered. The wood concerned can be used as a raw material for the production of chipboards. We also selectively collect PMD in order to give a new lease of life through recycling. Small dangerous waste or combustible waste is disposed of using appropriate channels, as well as only a small fraction inert, not dangerous waste.

18 March 2019

Amines separate CO & CO2 for further processing

On 18 March 2019, ArcelorMittal Gent and Dow (Terneuzen) announced that they were working with various partners on an innovative technology to chemically separate CO and CO2 (with amines) from the steel making process gases. The project was named "Carbon2Value".
The pilot installation was installed on our Ghent site in 2018. After inspection and an extensive testing phase, the pilot programme was started in the spring of 2019. The official inauguration of the pilot installation took place on 18 March 2019 in the presence of Philippe Muyters, Flemish Minister of Work, Economy, Innovation and Sport.

“Our Carbon2Value project is a good example of a cross-border industrial symbiosis between the steel industry and the chemical industry to reduce CO2 emissions.”

2 May 2019

On Thursday 2 May 2019, in the presence of Flemish Minister-President Geert Bourgeois, the first shovel hit the ground on the construction of two new ground-breaking installations to further reduce ArcelorMittal Gent‘s carbon emissions.

Blast furnace gas becomes bioethanol

Part of the CO that we separate through our Carbon2Value pilot plant will be converted into bioethanol via the Steelanol plant, to be used as a fuel for transport or for the production of plastics.

“Our Steelanol plant will be the first industrial plant of its kind in Europe, with an annual production of 80 million litres of bioethanol.”

This technology, licensed by the American company LanzaTech, with whom we have formed a partnership, uses carbon monoxide-fed microbes to produce bioethanol. The Steelanol plant is expected to be commissioned and start production by 2020.

Processing waste wood into biocarbon

The Torero plant will transform waste wood into biocarbon to be used in our blast furnaces. This allows us to reduce the injection of fossil pulverised coal into the blast furnaces, thereby reducing CO2 emissions. This also offers an alternative to the current process of incinerating of this waste stream.

“In its initial phase, the Torero plant will convert 120,000 tonnes of waste wood into approximately 50,000 tonnes of biocoal every year.”

The technology of the torrefaction process has been developed by the company Torr-Coal, the waste wood will be supplied by Renewi. Commissioning and initial production are expected by the end of 2020.