Lhoist, Air Liquide aid thyssenkrupp supply-chain decarbonisation

Lime manufacturer Lhoist Germany and industrial gases company Air Liquide are working on a plan for a large-scale industrial plant to capture the CO2 generated during lime production. Thyssenkrupp will be a beneficiary, as it aims to boost production of “green” steel using carbon-neutral lime.

The project will be carried out at Europe’s largest lime production plant in Wülfrath, North Rhine Westphalia state. For thyssenkrupp Steel, “green” lime is another important building block in its technnological transformation, the steelmaker says in a statement seen by Kallanish. In cooperation with Lhoist and Air Liquide, it aims to prevent the generation of about 1 million tonnes/year of CO2 in the production of the lime it sources.

“The project is a perfect example of the decarbonisation of the entire supply chain,” tk Steel chief technology officer Arnd Köfler said during a presentation in Wülfrath, attended by the state’s economy minister, Mona Neubaur. “Unavoidable CO2 emissions from lime manufacture can be captured with our technology, and then safely transported, reused or stored,” said Gilles Le Van of Air Liquide.

Lime is needed in numerous industrial value chains. In steelmaking, lime products are indispensable for removing troublesome by-elements from the hot metal and binding them in the converter slag that is derived from the lime. Manufacturing green steel thus requires green lime, thyssenkrupp states.

Christian Koehl Germany