Towards Fossil-Free Steel

In Finland, steel industry is responsible for 7% of the total CO2 emissions. To support Finland’s target of being carbon neutral by 2035, the steel industry has stepped up and aims for major reduction of its CO2 emissions. Due to the high level of maturity of current carbon intensive processes, a large-scale CO2 mitigation is not possible by further process development. The ambition of the FFS project is to take a significant leap away from carbon intensive steelmaking towards fossil-free steel production. Utilization of electricity and hydrogen instead of carbon is in the core in the transition to carbon-neutral steelmaking.

In the FFS project, research activities are operated under following topics:

• WP 1 – Carbon-neutral steelmaking
• WP 2 – Clean energy
• WP 3 – Fossil-free materials

Main research topic of Process Metallurgy Research Unit in FFS include modelling of fossil-free steelmaking routes, studies on electrical melting processes, hydrogen reduction of iron, use of biochar in multiple steelmaking applications and scale formation in slab/strip reheating based on fossil-free energy.

The FFS project is a part of the strategic research agenda of the Association of Finnish Steel and Metal Producers which supports the carbon-neutrality goal of Finland.

Total budget: €12M (University of Oulu’s budget €2.15M for seven research units)



Partners: Betolar Oy, Fortum Power and Heat Oy, Luxmet Oy, Nordkalk Oy Ab, SSAB Europe Oy, Tapojärvi Oy Boliden Harjavalta Oy, Valmet Technologies Oy, University of Oulu, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, Åbo Akademi University