Graduate Student Seminar

October 31, 2025

12:45 p.m. ET

7500 Wean Hall

Achieving CO2-Free Steelmaking: Pathways and Challenges

The steel industry plays a crucial role in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement. Transitioning to CO2-free steel production involves three key technological pathways. The Circular Economy approach enhances sustainability by maximizing material recovery and increasing steel scrap recycling. Smart carbon use focuses on optimizing existing steelmaking processes through process integration and utilizing captured CO/CO2 for valuable products via carbon capture and utilization. Carbon direct avoidance seeks to eliminate CO2 emissions by replacing fossil fuels with electric energy and hydrogen from renewable energy, mainly focussing on virgin iron ore processing. However, the shift to zero-carbon steel presents significant challenges, including high investment costs, infrastructure demands, and the availability of essential resources such as green electricity, hydrogen, and high-quality scrap. Overcoming these barriers is critical to ensuring a sustainable future for the steel industry.

 

schenck Johannes Schenk
Professor, Montanuniversität Leoben

Johannes Schenk holds a Ph.D. in process engineering from the Graz University of Technology. He started his career in 1990 at Voestalpine Industrieanlagenbau (now Primetals Technologies Austria) as a process and research engineer focusing on alternative ironmaking technologies such as MIDREX, COREX and FINMET. From 1992 to 2007, he was general manager and vice president of R&D, leading the development of the FINEX process.

Since 2008, Schenk has been a full professor of ferrous metallurgy at the Montanuniversität Leoben. From 2015 to 2023, he was also chief scientific officer of the Austrian metallurgical competence centre K1-MET GmbH.
His research focuses on primary steelmaking technologies, in particular ironmaking and crude steel production. Current projects focus on CO2-reduced steelmaking and recycling. Schenk has authored more than 180 papers in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings and is an inventor or co-inventor on more than 30 patent families.

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