Steel producer ArcelorMittal has said it will explore the development of a clean hydrogen project at its Juiz de Fora plant in Brazil.
The company has partnered with US-based clean tech firm Utility Global on this effort. It will deploy Utility’s H2Gen system, which uses blast furnace off-gas to produce hydrogen from water and a concentrated CO2 stream that can be captured and stored.
Hydrogen from the H2Gen system can replace natural gas in steelmaking, and the pure CO2 it produces makes carbon capture easier and cheaper.
Utility is currently assessing the technical feasibility of deploying its technology, capable of producing three tonnes of hydrogen per day. at the site.
The project has entered the front-end engineering and design process.
ArcelorMittal has also invested $5m in Utility Global through its XCarb Innovation Fund, which supports companies developing technologies that could reduce carbon emissions in steelmaking.
In April, ArcelorMittal said that integrating green hydrogen-based direct reduced iron (DRI) steelmaking and carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technologies is unlikely to be economically viable before 2030.
In the steel major’s 2024 Sustainability Report, ArcelorMittal’s CEO, Aditya Mittal, admitted that the large-scale transformation of steelmaking through these technologies won’t happen soon due to the high capital and operational costs associated.