Tata Steel Turns Waste Gas Into a Tool for Cleaner Steelmaking
Tata Steel has found a new use for one of the gases produced during steelmaking, turning it into a tool that could help reduce fossil-fuel consumption and carbon emissions at one of its major plants in India.
The company has commissioned India’s first Coke Oven Gas (COG) injection project at Blast Furnace 1 of its Meramandali plant in Odisha, marking a new step in its efforts to make conventional steelmaking less carbon-intensive.
The technology uses Coke Oven Gas, a hydrogen- and hydrocarbon-rich by-product generated during the production of coke. Instead of allowing the gas to remain a secondary product used mainly for power generation and heating, Tata Steel is feeding it back into the blast furnace process.
The move raises a simple question: How can a gas produced as part of steelmaking help make the same process cleaner?
What is Coke Oven Gas?
Coke Oven Gas is produced when coal is heated in coke ovens to make coke, a key material used in conventional blast-furnace ironmaking.
The resulting gas contains hydrogen and hydrocarbons. In integrated steel plants, it can be used for purposes such as power generation and heating, while some may otherwise be flared.
At Meramandali, Tata Steel is taking the gas back into the ironmaking process.
The company has implemented a system that injects COG into the blast furnace through devices known as tuyeres. Once inside the furnace, the gas can act as a reductant and substitute part of the fossil fuel normally required for the process.
That is where the environmental significance of the project lies.
Why is Tata Steel injecting the gas into a blast furnace?
Blast furnaces require large amounts of energy and carbon-based materials to convert iron ore into molten iron. Because conventional ironmaking depends heavily on fossil fuels, reducing the amount of fossil fuel required can help lower the carbon footprint of the process.
Tata Steel says the COG injection project is expected to reduce fossil-fuel consumption and CO₂ emissions while improving the flexibility of its blast-furnace operations.
The technology also gives the Meramandali blast furnace an opportunity to operate with a three-fuel system.
In practical terms, that means the furnace can have greater flexibility in choosing and balancing the fuels used during operations rather than depending on a single conventional fuel source.
For a steelmaker, that flexibility can also have operational and efficiency benefits.
Why this matters for India’s steel industry
Steel is one of the world’s most carbon-intensive industrial sectors because conventional production requires extremely high temperatures and large quantities of carbon-based fuels.
That makes decarbonising steel more complicated than simply switching a factory from petrol or diesel to electricity.
Companies therefore have to find ways of reducing emissions while continuing to operate existing industrial infrastructure.
Tata Steel’s approach at Meramandali is significant because it seeks to reduce fossil-fuel dependence within the existing blast-furnace process, rather than requiring an immediate replacement of the entire production system.
The company has previously experimented with other lower-carbon injection technologies. Tata Steel says it has demonstrated the injection of coal-bed methane, hydrogen and biochar into blast furnaces as part of its efforts to develop lower-carbon ironmaking technologies.
The COG project therefore forms part of a wider attempt to gradually change how conventional steel plants use energy and process gases.
Tata Steel’s Net Zero target
The project also fits into Tata Steel’s longer-term plan to reduce its environmental impact.
The company has set a target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2045, and its recent sustainability efforts have included the use of waste heat, by-product gases, renewable energy and alternative fuels across its operations.
Meramandali itself has previously been identified by Tata Steel as a site where excess by-product gases can be used as an alternative energy source.
The company’s annual report said COG injection at Blast Furnace 1 was expected to help increase hot-blast temperature and reduce blast-furnace fuel requirements.
The latest commissioning means the technology has moved beyond being simply an anticipated development and into operational use.
What does this mean for the future of steelmaking?
Tata Steel’s project does not mean conventional blast-furnace steelmaking has suddenly become carbon-free.
Rather, it demonstrates how steelmakers can look within their own production processes for ways to reduce fossil-fuel use and make existing plants more efficient.
The significance of the Meramandali project is therefore not just the gas itself. It is the idea of treating a by-product as a resource that can be fed back into production.
If technologies like this can be safely scaled and deliver the expected reductions in fossil-fuel consumption and emissions, they could become part of the broader transition towards lower-carbon steel.
For Tata Steel, the challenge now will be to demonstrate the technology at scale while continuing to improve the efficiency of its blast-furnace operations.
The company says the project reinforces its strategy of developing and scaling low-carbon technologies as it works towards its 2045 net-zero ambition.