Hyundai Steel’s electric furnace at its Incheon plant (Hyundai Steel)

Hyundai Steel said Thursday that it has set up its new and unique steel production system using an electric furnace called Hy-Cube, with a goal to produce low-carbon, high-quality steel products toward 2030.

Hy-Cube refers to Hy3, or Hyundai Hydrogen Hybrid, a process of melting raw iron materials to remove impurities when adding new components by using a new electric furnace concept called Hy-Arc.

With this new electric furnace, Hyundai Steel plans to minimize carbon emissions by using scrap iron, molten iron and direct reduced iron for the production of high-quality plate materials like automotive steel. Such a process emits about 25 percent less carbon compared to steelmaking with a blast furnace.

As the country’s largest steelmaker producing 10 million metric tons of products from electric furnaces, Hyundai Steel said its goal is to ultimately produce high-performance products using electric furnaces for carbon-neutral industries, which can also reduce carbon emissions during the manufacturing process.

The company said it will also leverage IT technology such as artificial intelligence to flexibly apply original raw materials for electric furnaces, hydrogen-reduced iron and carbon-neutral molten iron in the manufacturing process.

By Kim Da-sol (ddd@heraldcorp.com)