Renewably sourced biomass materials (wood, crops, animal waste, landfill gas, biofuel, etc.) are considered a carbon-neutral resource in life cycle analysis (LCA) that considers the energy consumption not only in biomass establishment but also harvesting, transport, drying and pyrolysis, wherein pyrolysis co-products are captured or utilised.  The reduction in carbon emissions is therefore due to biomass’s carbon neutrality.  Furthermore, in using biomass as a partial replacement of fossil fuels across steel manufacturing, biomass serves as both a solid fuel and reductant source.

 

In steelmaking processes, various technical, environmental, and economical evaluations of biomass applications have been conducted.  Potential application areas range from sintering, cokemaking, ironmaking (both in BF and DRI) and even to steelmaking processes, wherein small amounts of processed biomass are utilized as recarburiser, replacing calcined anthracite.  In steel applications, slow or low temperature pyrolysis (torrefaction) are preferred as these maximise solids (biochar) production.