Korea Herald reported that South Korea’s second largest steel maker Hyundai Steel is betting big on waste recycling in its renewed push for carbon neutrality as illustrated by its recycling of coffee grounds, cow dung and waste sludge from semiconductor manufacturing. Hyundai Steel has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Incheon Yeonsu Rehabilitation Center to accelerate related research for using coffee grounds in steel making. The North Gyeongsang Province Government Public Institute of Health and Environment will carry out a study on the effectiveness of utilizing used coffee grounds in reducing odor in livestock farms. Out of 150,000 tonnes of coffee beans imported annually, only 0.2% actually goes into the coffee, while the remaining 99.8% are discarded as waste. In March this year, the Environment Ministry designated used coffee grounds as a sustainable resource that can be recycled for diverse industrial uses.Hyundai Steel has also started to replace furnace fuel with cow excrement-based fuel in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation. Korea produces about 22 million tonnes of cow dung every year, accounting for over 2 million tonnes of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Most is used as fertilizer. However, alternative utilization will see 4 tonnes of dung being recycled to make 1 tonne of blast furnace fuel. It is estimated that the use of one ton of cow excrement-based fuel will have the environmental effect of reducing 1.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas, while helping to reduce reliance on imported raw materials.Hyundai Steel has also teamed up with Samsung Electronics on recycling wastewater sludge generated in the process of semiconductor manufacturing. Fluorite is a common raw material used at ironmaking and steelmaking facilities. It is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, a chemical also found in wastewater sludge from the chip industry. In April this year, Hyundai Steel succeeded in producing steel materials by using fluorite recycled from the wastewater sludge. Steel makers here used to depend entirely on imports for the material. But with the latest breakthrough, Hyundai Steel now secures 10,000 tonnes of fluorite, out of the total 20,000 tonnes needed, on its own, with plans to expand the portion in phases. The last feat was achieved jointly by Hyundai Steel, global tech giant Samsung Electronics and POS Ceramics, a local industrial by-product processor and recycler. The three have developed a new technology that can reuse wastewater sludge from semiconductor manufacturing as input material for steel manufacturing.
Korea Herald reported that South Korea’s second largest steel maker Hyundai Steel is betting big on waste recycling in its renewed push for carbon neutrality as illustrated by its recycling of coffee grounds, cow dung and waste sludge from semiconductor manufacturing. Hyundai Steel has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Incheon Yeonsu Rehabilitation Center to accelerate related research for using coffee grounds in steel making. The North Gyeongsang Province Government Public Institute of Health and Environment will carry out a study on the effectiveness of utilizing used coffee grounds in reducing odor in livestock farms. Out of 150,000 tonnes of coffee beans imported annually, only 0.2% actually goes into the coffee, while the remaining 99.8% are discarded as waste. In March this year, the Environment Ministry designated used coffee grounds as a sustainable resource that can be recycled for diverse industrial uses.Hyundai Steel has also started to replace furnace fuel with cow excrement-based fuel in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and the National Agricultural Cooperative Federation. Korea produces about 22 million tonnes of cow dung every year, accounting for over 2 million tonnes of annual greenhouse gas emissions. Most is used as fertilizer. However, alternative utilization will see 4 tonnes of dung being recycled to make 1 tonne of blast furnace fuel. It is estimated that the use of one ton of cow excrement-based fuel will have the environmental effect of reducing 1.5 tonnes of greenhouse gas, while helping to reduce reliance on imported raw materials.Hyundai Steel has also teamed up with Samsung Electronics on recycling wastewater sludge generated in the process of semiconductor manufacturing. Fluorite is a common raw material used at ironmaking and steelmaking facilities. It is the mineral form of calcium fluoride, a chemical also found in wastewater sludge from the chip industry. In April this year, Hyundai Steel succeeded in producing steel materials by using fluorite recycled from the wastewater sludge. Steel makers here used to depend entirely on imports for the material. But with the latest breakthrough, Hyundai Steel now secures 10,000 tonnes of fluorite, out of the total 20,000 tonnes needed, on its own, with plans to expand the portion in phases. The last feat was achieved jointly by Hyundai Steel, global tech giant Samsung Electronics and POS Ceramics, a local industrial by-product processor and recycler. The three have developed a new technology that can reuse wastewater sludge from semiconductor manufacturing as input material for steel manufacturing.
