Current status of steelmaking technology in Korea

The global steel community is faced with significant obstacles that continue to increase pressure for higher productivity and efficiency, while maintaining profitability. Cost structures for steelmaking have significantly changed in Korea, as limitations with raw materials, over-supply of steel, energy price fluctuations, and environmental regulations burden the industry. It is at this precipice that the steel industry requires reforms through not only organizational re-structuring, but also technology innovations that can make or break the global steel industry today. Some of these technology innovations include process changes for producing today's increased demands for lighter and tougher steels in the transportation and energy sectors containing high Mn contents that are not only stronger, but also more formable. More stringent environmental regulations through carbon taxes that seem to have been expanding throughout the global community is forcing steelmakers to increase alternative iron units and scrap to substitute hot metal in the BOF and to implement carbon saving technologies such as direct CO₂ injection for decarburization and improved catchcarbon processing. The EAF processes, which utilize mostly scrap, have made use of the off-gas exhaust heats and latent heat of slags for higher energy efficiency of the furnace and increased by- product utilization. Impurity removal during secondary steelmaking has been greatly enhanced with optimal slag chemistry control resulting in improved steel cleanliness and steel homogeneity. To provide the consumer with cleaner steels low in inclusions there has also been recent developments in both tundish refractory filtering and electrochemical decomposition of formed oxides, which have been implemented on submerged entry nozzles in the continuous casting. These recent advancements in steelmaking technologies that have been developed and implemented in the Korean steel industry are introduced and the results highlighted to illustrate the role of technology in todays' competitive steel market place.