PhD Studentship: Behaviours of Nitrogen in the Future Green Steelmaking Routes

Funding Source: Warwick Industrial Fellowship

Sponsor Company: Tata Steel Nederland Technology B.V.

Stipend: £18,200 per annum for 3.5 years

Eligibly: Available to Home fee status and UK domicile EU students

Start Date: October 2023

Project Overview

An enthusiastic individual is being invited to join a team of researchers to work on the Warwick Industrial Fellowship funded project sponsored by Tata Steel in the Netherlands. By adopting hydrogen and renewable electricity based green steelmaking, Tata Steel in the Netherlands has  committed to reducing its CO₂ emissions with 35 - 40% by 2030 and being CO₂-neutral by 2045. The aim of this project is to create fundamental knowledge of nitrogen behaviour under future green steelmaking scenarios to support steel industry decarbonisation. 

Steel is an irreplaceable material in our modern life, while steel industry accounts for 9% of global anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. A variety of low emission steel manufacturing processes are being developed to convert the currently dominating Blast Furnace – Basic Oxygen Furnace (BF-BOF) steelmaking route to low CO₂ or CO₂ free steelmaking route. However, one of the technical challenges for the new steelmaking routes is the achievable nitrogen content in the steel produced. Some high-quality steels demand good formability and toughness, along with good surface quality, which necessitates controlling nitrogen to very low levels of ~20-30 ppm. This is achieved by the current BF-BOF steelmaking route because of its excellent nitrogen removal capability. However, alternative metallic charges with low or no carbon content (carbon-free direct reduced iron, remelted direct reduced iron, steel scrap) are expected to adversely impact the thermodynamics and kinetics of N₂ in the future green steelmaking routes.

Therefore, to enable CO₂ free green steelmaking, this PhD project will thoroughly investigate the nitrogen absorption and desorption mechanisms of alternate metallic charges with varying conditions of composition, temperature, and pressure, by utilising the experimental facility and modelling expertise at WMG. A mathematical model based on the experimental data and fundamentals will be developed to predict the nitrogen in melt with various conditions, validated by industrial scale data.

The research will be carried out by using the world-leading research facilities (high temperature experiment, advanced characterisation and modelling) at the Advanced Steel Research Centre (ASRC) of WMG, the University of Warwick. This PhD studentship also offers a unique opportunity to work with the leading scientists at Tata Steel Nederland Technology B.V. (the industry sponsor), the Research and Development of Tata Steel in the Netherlands.

Essential and Desirable Criteria

We are actively seeking an enthusiastic individual to join the Advanced Steel Research Centre (ASRC) at WMG, the University of Warwick with the following entry requirements and expectations:

A 1st or 2.1 undergraduate (BEng, BSc, MEng) and/or postgraduate masters’ qualification (MSc) in a science and technology field such as Metallurgy, Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, Physics, Materials Science and Engineering, Manufacturing.

A passion and enthusiasm to challenge the state-of-the-art and to apply the world leading research facilities for the creation of critical knowledge and its industrial applications.

Funding and Eligibility

Funding of £18,200 per annum for 3.5 years.

Funding is available to eligible Home fee status and UK domicile EU students.

Key Information 

Supervisors

University of Warwick: Professor Zushu Li, Dr Zhiming Yan

Tata Steel Nederland Technology B.V.: Dr Bapin Rout, Dr Saikat Chatterjee

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