Application of LCA to circular economy strategies in steelmaking industry: state-of-the-art and recommendations

- 1 - LIFE CYCLE THINKING A SUPPORTO DI MODELLI DI PRODUZIONE E DI CONSUMO SOSTENIBILI XVIII Convegno dell’Associazione Rete Italiana LCA Application of LCA to circular economy strategies in steelmaking industry: state-of-the-art and recommendations Federico Rossi 1 , Monia Niero1, Marco Frey1 Abstract: This paper aims to: i) defining the state of the art of the application of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to the implementation of Circular Economy (CE) strategies to steelmaking and ii) to providing recommendations for their application in two real-world projects. A literature review was performed on 37 papers, which underlines that steel slag recovery is the most trending topic in the field, followed by scrap recycling. A careful evaluation of these papers allowed us to point out four CE strategies investigated in the literature. One strategy is focused on secondary steel production, while the others include interactions with other industrial sectors (construction and agriculture), energy recovery and the use of alternative carbon sources and reducing agents. 1. Introduction Environmental sustainability in the steel sector is attracting an increasing interest in European research projects and initiatives (Andreotti et al., 2023). The scientific literature demonstrates that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is one of the most widely used methodologies to quantify the environmental impact of the steelmaking industry (Suer et al., 2022). Moreover, LCA analyses are often linked with the investigation of circular economy (CE) in steel production and recycling (Colla et al., 2023). Several possibilities to implement CE strategies in the steel sector are available (Rieger et al., 2021): i) enhancing steel recycling, ii) valorization of steelmaking residues (e.g. dust, slags, foundry sands, and flue gases), and iii) using secondary sources from non-steel sectors (e.g. carbon sources, reducing agents). In particular, steel and iron scraps can be used to produce secondary steel in electric arc furnaces (EAFs) as a more environmentally friendly alternative to primary steelmaking plants like blast furnaces (BF) and basic oxygen furnaces (BOF) (Haupt et al., 2017). On the other hand, several steelmaking residues such as dust and slags contain valuable metals to be recovered and reintegrated into the metallurgical industry thus avoiding the environmental impacts of further virgin materials extraction and processes (Buyle et al., 2021). Moreover, some of these residues (e.g. slags and foundry sands) are also suitable to be used in other industrial sectors, such as the production of construction materials like cement or asphalt (Di Maria et al., 2018). Also, due to the high temperatures reached in EAFs and BF-BOFs, steelmaking residues can be used as highly valuable energy carriers inside the production plant (García et al., 2019). In addition to scraps, other types of waste from non-metallurgical sectors can be used as inputs for the steelmaking process such as waste carbon source (Fick et al., 2014), namely a waste substance that provides carbon to the steelmaking process, or a reducing agent 1 Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Interdisciplinary Center for Sustainability and Climate, Piazza Martiri della Libertà, n. 33, 56127 Pisa, Italy E-mail: [email protected] - 2 - LIFE CYCLE THINKING A SUPPORTO DI MODELLI DI PRODUZIONE E DI CONSUMO SOSTENIBILI XVIII Convegno dell’Associazione Rete Italiana LCA that facilitates the removal of oxygen from iron ore or other metal oxides during the steelmaking process (Vadenbo et al., 2013). There is an interest in outlining the potential of LCA as a useful tool for the evaluation of the environmental performances of alternative CE strategies in relation to the steelmaking sector. In this context, the aim of this paper is twofold: - Research Objective 1 (RO1): Defining the state of the art of the application of LCA to the implementation of CE strategies to steelmaking; - Research Objective 2 (RO2): Providing strategic recommendations for the implementation of LCA to assess CE strategies in two real-world projects, namely “ALCHIMIA - Data and decentralized Artificial intelligence for a competitive and green European metallurgy industry” (European Commission, 2022) and “GRINS – Growing Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable” (Grins Foundation, 2023). 2. Materials and methods 2.1 Literature review The work presented in this paper is part of a wider literature analysis regarding the application of LCA in foundries. Therefore, the literature search has been conducted in Scopus in the timeframe 2012-2023 using the combination of the following keywords: “foundries AND LCA”, “foundries AND Life Cycle”, “foundry AND LCA”, “foundry AND Life Cycle”, “aluminum AND LCA”, “aluminum AND Life Cycle”, “steel OR steelmaking AND LCA”, “steel OR steelmaking AND Life Cycle”, “Non-ferrous metals OR Non ferrous metals OR nonferrous metals AND LCA”, “Non-ferrous metals OR Nonferrous metals OR nonferrous metals AND Life Cycle”. With this search, 189 papers have been selected and classified depending on the metals under consideration, research focus (e.g. methods, waste valorization, decarbonization technologies, geographical context), and type of publication (e.g. review study, research paper, conference proceedings, reports, book chapters). To answer RO1, such classification allowed the selection of a group of papers that focus on the application of LCA to the implementation of CE strategies in the steelmaking industry. Only papers that have an explicit focus on material circularity have been considered in the analysis. Then, papers were classified according to the types of waste and residues based on Rieger et al., (2021), and 4 categories were identified: i) Steel scraps, ii) Steel slags; iii) Other steelmaking residues (dust, fly ashes, foundry sands, flue gases); iv) Non-steelmaking residues (e.g. plastic, paper, chemicals, etc..). Emphasis has been given to key LCA methodological aspects considered in the studies, i.e. functional unit and modeling of recycling (Suer et al., 2022). 2.2 Real-world Research Projects Evaluation ALCHIMIA (https://alchimia-project.eu/) is a European project (European Commission, 2022) that aims to develop methodologies for optimizing the input scrap mix to reduce the carbon footprint and the energy consumption of the scrap production route through the application of digital technologies based on Artificial Intelligence techniques. In one of the case studies considered in the project, LCA is used to optimize the scraps mix and the energy consumption flows based on 3 EAF steelmaking plants owned by CELSA Group (CELSA Group, 2022). GRINS (https://grins.it/) is an Italian project financed by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR) (Grins Foundation, 2023); within “spoke 1 Firms’ sustainability”, Work Package 3 “WP 3 - To increase firms' efficiency in circular resource management along the whole value chain” refers to companies' entire supply chains to assess the environmental impacts of specific sectors (e.g., agri-food) and industrial clusters. It aims to support companies to adopt efficient and circular strategies/tools and sustainable, innovative solutions, facilitate the transition - 3 - LIFE CYCLE THINKING A SUPPORTO DI MODELLI DI PRODUZIONE E DI CONSUMO SOSTENIBILI XVIII Convegno dell’Associazione Rete Italiana LCA to industrial symbiosis models, and measure their local impacts by means of LCA. One of the sectors investigated within the project is the metals foundries. A sketch of the methodology considered in this study to answer RO1 and RO2 is presented in Figure 1. Figure 1. Sketch of the methodology considered in this study. 3. Results and discussion 3.1 State-of-the-art of LCA applied to CE strategies implementation in steelmaking In the literature analysis, 37 papers addressing the application of LCA to CE strategies in steelmaking have been identified. All papers are listed in Figure 2 and classified according to the 4 categories defined in Section 2.1. Figure 2 also summarizes the main CE strategies that have been considered in the LCA studies under review. As demonstrated by the size of the circles in Figure 2, which is proportional to the number of papers addressing each type of waste, steel slag recovery gathered the attention of most LCA practitioners (26 publications). On the other hand, 7 papers specifically analyze the valorization of other steel-making residues such as dust, foundry sands, and flue gases. Similarly, 8 papers are focused on the valorization of residues coming from the non-steelmaking sector. For instance, in industrial symbiosis case studies, waste flows are exchanged inside an industrial park integrating steel foundries and factories from other sectors. Furthermore, 7 papers are focused on the enhancement of steel recycling by increasing the quality of the scraps melted in EAFs. Interestingly, some of the papers listed above concern more than one type of residue. For instance, Yilmaz et al. (2015) compared 11 solutions to mitigate the environmental impact of casting, including scraps, dust, foundry sands, and steel slags. Also, the valorization of the above-mentioned residues is evaluated by Andersson et al. (2017), who used LCA to quantify the impact mitigation of materials circularity in the Swedish steel industry. Dong et al., (2014) instead calculated the benefits of urban and industrial symbiosis in terms of carbon footprint: an iron and steel factory is interconnected with paper, plastic, chemical, and cement factories to exchange waste flows; urban wastes are also used as feedstock for the industrial park. In addition to the number of papers that regard each type of steel residue, Figure 2 also highlights with different colors the CE strategies that are employed, namely: - CE Strategy 1: Producing steel from scraps and other steelmaking residues. Scrap quality can be enhanced by using mechanical pre-treatments (Andersson et al., 2017) and optimizing the mix of scraps depending on their physical and chemical composition (Haupt et al., 2017). Also, useful materials to produce high-quality steel can be recovered from secondary sources, such as chromium from steel slags (Buyle et al., 2021) and zinc from dust (Ng et al., 2016). Circular Economy Steel Steel Scraps Steel Slags NonSteelmaking Wastes Other Steelmaking Residues Literature search Research Objectives LCA - 4 - LIFE CYCLE THINKING A SUPPORTO DI MODELLI DI PRODUZIONE E DI CONSUMO SOSTENIBILI XVIII Convegno dell’Associazione Rete Italiana LCA - CE Strategy 2: Recycling steelmaking residues in the construction and agricultural sectors. Steel residues (especially foundry sands and slags) can also be used as inert materials in the construction sector to produce cement (Das et al., 2022) and asphalt (Mikhailenko et al., 2023) or as fertilizer in agriculture (Renzulli et al., 2016). - CE Strategy 3: Energy recovery. This strategy is possible by exploiting, with adequate heat exchangers and energy systems, the energy content of flue gases (García et al., 2019), slags (Duan et al., 2018), and waste heat from other factories in industrial symbiosis cases (Wang et al., 2019). - CE Strategy 4: Use of alternative carbon sources and reducing agents. Several waste that are commonly produced by factories represent useful resources to produce steel. For instance, bio-syngas from waste can be used as a reducing agent for the production of direct reduction iron from steel slags (Nurdiawati et al., 2023) and waste biomass as carbon sources (Fick et al., 2014). Figure 2. Collection and classification of the papers reviewed in this study according to the type of residue considered (number of studies in parenthesis) and the circular economy (CE) strategies implemented. The publications investigating the CE strategies listed above are indicated with several colors (in order black, green, yellow, and blue) in Figure 2. It is evident that the 4 CE Strategies identified can be complementary. For instance, it is possible to enhance steel recycling by improving scrap quality and valorizing steel slags and dust in the construction sector (Yilmaz et al., 2015), and industrial symbiosis models can be also included (Dong et al., 2014). Figure 2 shows that CE Strategy 2, especially for steel slag recovery as construction material, is the approach most investigated in the literature. The reason is that using steel residues as construction materials Lu et al., 2020 Liu et al., 2019 - 5 - LIFE CYCLE THINKING A SUPPORTO DI MODELLI DI PRODUZIONE E DI CONSUMO SOSTENIBILI XVIII Convegno dell’Associazione Rete Italiana LCA currently represents the simplest way for their recovery because it mostly implies a mechanical process rather than a thermo-chemical one. CE Strategy 1 has also been quite extensively investigated. In particular, there are several methods to recover valuable metals from steel and most of them are not yet consolidated (Buyle et al., 2021). For this reason, several authors decided to orient their research to this topic. On the other hand, although scrap recycling is a well-known practice in steel foundries, only a few papers deal with scrap quality optimization, e.g. (Haupt et al., 2017). CE Strategies 3 and 4 turned out to be more unexplored and space is left for further investigation. 3.1.1 LCA methodological insights Remarkable differences in terms of the application of the LCA methodology can be observed by comparing the papers under review. In particular, the choice of how to model recycling is not univocal. Some authors adopted a recycling modeling method based on the “avoided burden” approach (also called “substitution” and “system expansion” approach), and other authors preferred using a “cut-off” method. The former method estimates the benefits of recycling postconsumer waste by considering the environmental burdens of the substituted material as credits; the latter considers as “burden-free” the usage of secondary resources (van der Harst et al., 2016). Concerning CE Strategy 1 (producing steel from scraps and other steelmaking residues), it is possible to observe that the “avoided burden” approach is generally preferred to consider the environmental benefits of recycling steel residues such as slags both in the metals and in other sectors. For instance, Buyle et al., (2021) consider the avoidance of environmental impacts of primary chromium and zinc production through an innovative waste treatment of slags. The cutoff method instead is preferred to highlight the environmental advantages of using secondary sources. This is the case of authors who consider steel scraps in EAFs as burden-free inputs (Yilmaz et al., 2015). For these reasons, the “cut-off” method is often preferred when recycled materials are inputs of the steelmaking process (e.g. steel scraps). The “avoided burdens” approach instead is generally adopted when residues are outputs of the steelmaking process (e.g. slags) and they are recycled inside the steel sector. Other methodological considerations regard the application of advanced LCA methodologies. Since several steel slag recovery technologies are still at the pilot scale level, Buyle et al., (2021) performed ex-ante LCA, which aims to predict the future environmental impacts of emerging technologies assuming the achievement of high maturity levels (Arvidsson et al., 2023). For CE Strategy 2 (Recycling steelmaking residues in the construction and agricultural sectors), which considers the recovery of steelmaking residues in construction sectors, “avoided burden” is preferred. Some authors assume that the use of foundry residues avoids the impact of landfilling (Mikhailenko et al., 2023; Turk et al., 2015) or of other materials used in construction like sand (Mitterpach et al., 2017). Both in CE Strategy 1 and 2 the functional unit of the LCA study is the mass of steel production or the mass of the waste subject to recycling. In case the of CE Strategy 3 (Energy recovery), the functional unit definition depends on the goal of the study. For instance, Duan et al., (2018) and García et al. (2019) respectively addressed the energy recovery from steel slags and flue gases. However, the function of the gasification plant analyzed by Duan et al., (2018) is the waste management of slags: therefore, the functional unit is 1 ton of slags under treatment. The function of the cogeneration system promoted by García et al. (2019) is electricity production while heat is considered a co-product: therefore, the functional unit is 1 MWh of electricity. Another case is related to the waste energy recovery as part of industrial symbiosis schemes (Dong et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2019), where the goal is to calculate the mitigation of annual environmental impacts due to the industrial symbiosis over a reference time (1 year). Regarding the recycling modelling, both steelmaking residues and waste BOF gases are considered burden-free following the “cut-off” approach. In industrial symbiosis - 6 - LIFE CYCLE THINKING A SUPPORTO DI MODELLI DI PRODUZIONE E DI CONSUMO SOSTENIBILI XVIII Convegno dell’Associazione Rete Italiana LCA case studies, an interesting methodological advancement regards the integration of LCA and emergy analysis (Liu et al., 2019; Lu et al., 2020). CE Strategy 4 (Use of alternative carbon sources and reducing agents) regards the use of waste from non-steelmaking industries as reducing agents or carbon sources. Like steel scraps, from the recycling modeling perspective, the use of waste biomass (Fick et al., 2014), waste plastic (Vadenbo et al., 2013), bio-fules (Nurdiawati et al., 2023) are predominantly with the “cutoff” approach to get benefits from the use of secondary resources. 3.2 Recommendations for real-world projects As described in Section 3.1.1, a high methodological variability can be observed when analyzing the literature studies reviewed in this paper. However, based on the main outcomes and results emerging from the LCA literature, a few recommendations for the implementation of CE strategies in ALCHIMIA and GRINS can be made. ALCHIMIA is focused on the production of secondary steel from scraps. In particular, in light of the scope of the project, we recommend the implementation of CE Strategy 1. An important insight is to focus on steel quality issues. Indeed, cleaning scraps operations during pre-treatments allows an increase in the quality of scraps and it overall reduces the energy consumption of steel foundries by 45% (Haupt et al., 2017). Moreover, the recovery of valuable materials from slags and dust represents another effective circular practice because relevant environmental benefits can be obtained through the recovery of chromium (Buyle et al., 2021), zinc (Ng et al., 2016); moreover, steel slags are also suitable to produce high-quality direct reduction iron (Nurdiawati et al., 2023). To optimize the input of materials and the consequent energy consumption a mathematic optimization tool is expected to be developed within the project. GRINS project regards the environmental sustainability and circularity of a wide spectrum of Italian industrial sectors, including metals foundries. Therefore, the application of CE Strategy 1 is recommended because, as highlighted in the previous paragraph, the use of secondary sources recovered from foundries to produce new metals is an effective CE strategy to mitigate the environmental burdens of this sector. However, the project is an opportunity to evaluate the environmental effectiveness of CE Strategies 2, 3, and 4 in foundries. For instance, following CE Strategy 2, foundry sands and steel slags can be recycled in the construction sector: the on-site recovery and external reuse of foundry sands mitigate the impact of steel casting by more than 60% (Yilmaz et al., 2015). Moreover, the use of steel slags allows to cut the environmental impacts of cement production by more than 40% (Gauffin et al., 2017). Furthermore, in GRINS, we recommend the possibility of investigating energy recovery (CE Strategy 3) and the use of secondary carbon sources and reducing agents (CE Strategy 4) in industrial symbiosis schemes. For instance, according to Dong et al., (2014), the greenhouse gas emissions of an industrial district (including steel and iron foundries) can be reduced by almost 20% in the case of industrial and urban symbiosis where factories exchange waste energy and materials. One methodological recommendation in terms of LCA framework is investigating the use of the Circular Footprint Formula (CFF) to model the recycling, since its application is scarcely investigated in the literature, especially for intermediate metal products (Damiani et al., 2022). 4. Conclusions In this paper a literature review of the application of LCA to the implementation of CE strategies in the steelmaking sector was conducted. The literature search allowed us to identify 37 literature studies addressing the topic; most of them regard the recovery of steel slags, but other residues (dust, fly ashes, flue gases), steel scraps, and wastes from non-steelmaking sectors are also accounted for. Based on our analysis, 4 CE strategies have been identified. CE Strategy 1, producing steel from scraps and other steelmaking residues, particularly fits the scope of - 7 - LIFE CYCLE THINKING A SUPPORTO DI MODELLI DI PRODUZIONE E DI CONSUMO SOSTENIBILI XVIII Convegno dell’Associazione Rete Italiana LCA ALCHIMIA Project, while CE Strategies 2,3, and 4 could be investigated in GRINS as well as CE Strategy 1 as they also regard the use of waste and waste energy from other factories and the valorization of steel residues outside the metallurgical industry. However, the CE strategies analysis presented here could be extended to any other industrial sector involving the consumption of secondary resources and the production of recoverable co-products. Acknowledgements This study was funded by the European Union - NextGenerationEU, in the framework of the GRINS -Growing Resilient, INclusive and Sustainable project (GRINS PE00000018 – CUP J53C22003140001) and by the European Union (Project 101070046 - ALCHIMIA). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Commission. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. 5. References Andersson, G., Ponzio, A., Gauffin, A., Axelsson, H., Nilson, G., 2017. Sustainable steel production–Swedish initiative to ‘close the loop.’ Transactions of the Institutions of Mining and Metallurgy, Section C: Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy 126, 81–88. Andreotti, M., Brondi, C., Micillo, D., Zevenhoven, R., Rieger, J., Jo, A., Hettinger, A.L., Bollen, J., Malfa, E., Trevisan, C., Peters, K., Snaet, D., Ballarino, A., 2023. 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