Prediction and potential analysis of green metallurgy innovation development situation

(1) Prediction of the development trend of green metallurgy

Green development is an important content, key embodiment and ultimate goal to promote the high-quality development of China's metallurgical industry, with resources, energy and environment well-coordinated material recycling society as the core. The development direction of the metallurgical industry is reasonable industrial layout, advanced technology and equipment, high intelligence level, strong global competitiveness, green, low-carbon and sustainable. Looking forward to the metallurgical industry technology in the new era, its development trend is positioned as a technical system that comprehensively responds to the challenges of resources, energy and environment, and the core topic is to promote environmental protection and material circulation.

1. Solve the problem of resource recycling and break through the constraints of resources and environment

The recycling of resources is an inevitable trend of the green development of the metallurgical industry, and the utilization of scrap steel will gradually ease the situation of iron ore dependence on imports. The steel recycling materials represented by scrap steel are fully reduced metals, which belong to energy-carrying and environment-friendly green resources. A large proportion of the use of steel recycling materials will be an important development direction of low-carbon metallurgy in the future, while saving the use of blast furnace hot metal, greatly reducing CO2 and pollutant emissions. In 2020, the amount of scrap steel used in China is about 2.6×108 t, which can reduce CO2 emissions by about 4.16×108 t, and effectively replace 62% grade iron concentrate by about 4.1×108 t; It is expected that by 2025, the amount of scrap steel will be about 3.2×108 t [7].

The apparent consumption of 10 kinds of non-ferrous metals in China will continue to rise, is expected to reach 8.162×107 t in 2025, and the growth of demand has intensified the constraint of resources on the development of non-ferrous metals industry. In the future, we should comprehensively and advance the deployment of comprehensive resource replacement programs, build a recycling system for renewable resources, and achieve the basic goal of increasing the proportion of renewable resources by 15% to 50%. Innovative primary smelting with urban mineral utilization technology, crack the problem of resource recycling;

Implement the combination of "mining, selecting and smelting" to improve the utilization level of steel and non-ferrous resources, and then realize green and low-carbon metallurgy; Strengthen the recycling of tailings, smelting waste slag, etc. From the perspective of the whole life cycle, improve the level of smelting technology, significantly reduce resource consumption, and improve domestic and international resource security to support the green and low-carbon transformation of the industry.

2. Implement energy substitution innovation and strengthen metallurgical pollution reduction and carbon reduction

In a certain period of time, the blast furnace process is still the mainstream process of China's steel industry, and the steel industry will vigorously develop and actively apply energy-saving and low-carbon technologies, such as adopting waste heat and energy resource technology to improve interface energy efficiency and optimize the whole process energy efficiency of the metallurgical industry. We will increase the proportion of clean energy such as natural gas, expand the use of solar, wind, biomass and other renewable energy, deploy the hydrogen energy industry at an appropriate time, and comprehensively promote a clean and low-carbon energy structure. At the same time, the application of carbon capture, utilization and storage technology will be strengthened.

For the metallurgical process that directly consumes fossil fuels, the implementation of clean energy replacement has become the only way to solve the problem of carbon emissions, such as hydrogen energy will become the preferred type of clean energy application in the non-ferrous metal industry. Encourage metallurgical enterprises to take the initiative to adjust the energy use structure, and strive to increase the proportion of renewable clean energy to 45% by 2050; Promote hydropower and metallurgy joint projects, break through a series of new clean energy metallurgy processes and equipment, improve smelting technology level and reduce carbon emission intensity from the perspective of the whole life cycle.

3. Enhance industrial concentration and promote multi-industry links

The structural adjustment of the layout of China's steel industry is facing new challenges, continue to accelerate the pace of optimization and restructuring of steel enterprises, focus on improving the overall efficiency of the industry, rationally strengthen the degree of industrial concentration, and resolutely eliminate backward production capacity. In this process, we pay attention to all-round integration from the perspectives of technology, structure, system and resources, especially the integration and optimization of human resources and core technologies, to support the substantial improvement of industrial competitiveness. Encourage the link between the steel industry and various industrial industries, and promote the high value and high-end of industrial development. After entering the stage of high-quality development, the steel industry has focused on accelerating the construction of a domestic and international dual-cycle development pattern, in-depth implementation of the supply-side structural reform of the steel industry, and contributed to the smooth connection of upstream and downstream industries and promoted sustainable development.

It is urgent for the non-ferrous metal industry to carry out in-depth industrial structure adjustment to achieve scientific layout, and should abandon extensive production increase in the future, and actively turn to the deep-processing of non-ferrous metals with higher added value and wider demand. ① Based on the industry background of sufficient production capacity, drive industrial transformation and upgrading with advanced technology, improve quality and efficiency, form a complete industrial chain, and accelerate the transformation and upgrading from low-end to high-end, high-speed development to high-quality development; Promote the non-ferrous metal industry and aviation, aerospace, automotive, equipment manufacturing and other industries, from traditional industrial applications to expand to new industrial applications. (2) Overall planning of resources, energy, environment, transportation and other production factors inside and outside the country (environment), overall optimization of the non-ferrous metal industry layout, promote the withdrawal of inefficient production capacity, encourage the existing production capacity to energy, resource enrichment areas, concentrated consumption areas transfer, such as electrolytic aluminum industry to the west transfer, aluminum processing industry to the north transfer; The formation of coal (water) - electricity - alumina - electrolytic aluminum - aluminum deep processing - recycled aluminum integration "efficient aluminum industry chain", as far as possible the primary aluminum local or nearby into deep processing products, parts manufacturing, semi-finished products, finished products, production services extended.

4. Promote the application of process information and realize industrial intelligent manufacturing

Intelligent manufacturing has become the development trend of many industries, and the introduction of metallurgical enterprises can not only improve productivity and product quality, but also achieve the interconnection of production information. In the future, the steel industry will make full use of the new generation of information technology to continuously improve the level of digitalization, networking and intelligence; Take intelligent manufacturing as the development theme [23] to promote transformation and upgrading and high-quality development. Specifically, a big data platform of process parameters - product comprehensive performance - quality stability is built, the process parameters of the whole process of product production are deeply optimized, and the intelligent process model database of product production is established which is suitable for mass customization and multi-process coordination. In the future, the non-ferrous metal industry will break through the traditional division of labor interface of non-ferrous, steel, chemical, construction and other industries, and form cross-industry composite enterprises or joint enterprises in the way of interest coordination, so as to achieve green, low-carbon and safe development while enhancing the high-end supply capacity of new non-ferrous metal materials.

(2) Innovation and development potential of iron and steel metallurgy

At present, China's steel industry to capacity remarkable results, from the source to ensure the level of green development of the industry, in the "13th Five-Year" period not only completed in advance of the target limit (1.5×108 t), but also banned a certain scale of "strip steel" capacity (1.4×108 t). In this process, the performance of process equipment is significantly improved, and the promotion of advanced green technology is accelerated; The capacity of 5.5m and above tamping, 6 m and above top charging coke oven increased by 6.7%, the capacity of 1000 m3 and above blast furnace increased by 6.5%, and the capacity of 100 t and above converter and electric furnace increased by 10 percentage points. In addition, the green development capacity has been significantly improved, energy conservation and emission reduction indicators have been significantly improved, such as the key statistics of the average ton of steel SO2, NOx, particulate matter emissions of iron and steel enterprises have decreased by 48%, 18%, 39%, and the comprehensive energy consumption of tons of steel has decreased from 0.572 tce to 0.554 tce.

In the face of the urgent need for higher levels of green development, the development of new green processes, equipment and technology, and the construction of green steel industry production mode that ADAPTS to the characteristics of national conditions. The use of industrial structure optimization, reasonably improve industrial concentration and broaden market influence, completely change the industry development of "small scattered" situation, with advantageous enterprises to drive the green development process of the whole industry. Promote the transformation of raw material structure and process flow, and strive to reach 30% of the national iron and steel industry scrap by the end of the "14th Five-Year Plan", and increase the proportion of electric furnace steel to 20%. Implement the green upgrading of steel and accelerate the high-value and concentrated development of the comprehensive utilization of resources industry; Encourage steel enterprises to build a comprehensive industrial base for waste resources that can play a leading role in the market, and effectively promote the coupling development of steel and building materials, electric power, chemical and other industries. We will improve the standard system for green manufacturing, and fully establish a standard system for energy saving, water saving, and comprehensive utilization of resources in the steel industry.

(3) Innovation and development potential of non-ferrous metallurgy

At present, China's non-ferrous metallurgy industry has achieved remarkable results in structural transformation and upgrading. Through the transformation and upgrading of industrial structure, the expansion of inefficient production capacity has been restrained, and the transfer of non-ferrous metal production to clean energy rich areas such as hydropower (such as Yunnan Province and Sichuan Province) has been encouraged. The production situation that relies on coal has changed significantly, and the expansion of product applications has provided new momentum for the development of the industry, such as "aluminum wood" in the construction field, "aluminum instead of steel" in the transportation field, and "aluminum instead of plastic" in the packaging field.

The energy conservation and emission reduction potential of the non-ferrous metallurgy industry has been continuously released, driving the continuous reduction of the proportion of energy consumption, and the comprehensive power consumption of aluminum ingots and the comprehensive energy consumption of crude copper smelting have reached the world advanced level. The new emission reduction technology has improved the energy-saving emission reduction indicators, such as the inert anode to increase the current efficiency of electrolytic aluminum to 97%, and the removal effect of impurity elements to 80%. In the lead and zinc smelting industry, the SO2 production intensity decreased by 97% and the particulate matter production intensity decreased by 90% [23], and the lead smelting oxygen-enriched smelting + direct reduction process increased the clean production level to 90%.

The rapid development of the recycled non-ferrous metal industry has gradually formed a new pattern of "original + regeneration" coordinated development. The development and application of new materials have broken some of the "stuck neck" technologies of foreign blockades, such as high-purity metal, 8-inch silicon wafers, lead frame materials, etc.

Looking at the future, the development potential of the non-ferrous metallurgy industry depends on the following aspects. Research and development of recycled metal utilization technology, deepen the recycling of metal resources, and resolve the shortage of primary resources [7]. Promote industry energy innovation technology to maximize energy conservation and reduce energy consumption. We will optimize industrial structure and cluster links, promote the application of cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet, big data, artificial intelligence, fifth-generation mobile communications (5G), edge computing, and virtual reality, drive the use of high value-added resources, and promote the integrated development of upstream and downstream industries. Improve the key technology system of metallurgy, and essentially break through the bottleneck links that restrict the development of the industry.

(4) Metallurgical industry green development stage and path

According to the green development goal of metallurgical industry, the characteristics and mission of different stages of green metallurgical development are identified, and the four-stage division of green development of metallurgical industry in China is proposed (see Figure 3). In the different stages of the development of the metallurgical industry, the corresponding green development measures are taken to achieve the goals of each stage, making the metallurgical industry smoothly turn to innovative, low-carbon, green and intelligent development.

Second, green metallurgy innovation and development measures

(1) Strengthen the strategic position of metallurgical power and optimize the development ideas of green metallurgical industry

1. Rely on superior resources and clean energy gathering places to reconstruct the layout of the metallurgical industry

Encourage the transfer of metallurgical production capacity to renewable energy rich areas such as wind energy, solar energy (Northwest region), hydropower (Southwest region) or metal resources/renewable resources rich areas; Combined with the construction of the industrial chain base, the metallurgical industry (such as aluminum electrolysis) can be laid out near the coastal nuclear power enterprises (such as Fuqing City, Fujian Province). Strengthen the regional agglomeration effect of resources and energy, strengthen the investigation and evaluation of strategic minerals such as lithium, cobalt and ionic rare earth based on the domestic market, and take into account the exploration of bulk minerals in short supply such as iron and copper; Strengthen the prospecting of key metallogenic zones and accumulate reserves; Accelerate the prospect survey and prospecting prediction of key metallogenic zones such as copper, nickel and lithium in southwest and northwest China, and improve the ability to secure strategic mineral resources; We have actively carried out exploration in the deep and peripheral areas of old mines to form a number of key mineral resource continuity areas. Adjust the product structure and capacity layout, reasonable extension of the industrial chain, such as the future layout of steel mills can be divided into two categories: blast furnace, converter long process and plate production of large-scale joint enterprises, mainly arranged in the coastal deep water port area; The short process steel mill of all scrap electric furnace, which mainly produces long materials for construction, is mainly arranged around the city to absorb social waste such as scrap steel, abandoned electricity, and urban water.

2. In response to the "Belt and Road" Initiative, actively layout overseas metallurgical gathering places

To acquire overseas mineral resources through a variety of market-oriented ways such as investment, merger and acquisition, joint investment, etc. The key development directions are: copper resources in Congo (DRC), Zambia, Peru and other countries, bauxite resources in Guinea, Indonesia, Jamaica, Laos, Cambodia and other countries, and laterite nickel ore in Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea and other countries. Overall planning, reasonable layout, long-term follow-up, orderly promotion of major projects in relevant areas, improve supporting infrastructure and port construction; We will form a number of overseas mineral resource bases with large scale, complete varieties, complete supporting facilities and international competitiveness, and substantially enhance our ability to safeguard overseas resources. The countries and regions along the "Belt and Road" have rich reserves of iron, copper, lead, zinc, nickel, gold and other resources. Through the layout of overseas metallurgical gathering places, China's advanced metallurgical technology and standards are driven to the international market. For example, the selection of countries and regions along the "Belt and Road" with conditions to layout aluminum, copper and other processing capacity, expand new space for industrial development, and efficiently extend the industrial chain.

3. Build a national metallurgical strategic scientific and technological force, and strengthen the capacity building of national laboratories

We will build high-end scientific and technological innovation platforms such as the National Laboratory for non-ferrous Metals, tackle major technical problems in the industry such as metal extraction, material preparation, and ecological disposal under extremely poor and mixed resources, extreme environments, and complex systems, and effectively respond to the challenges of resource and environmental security and "bottleneck" links. Use advanced information technology platforms to support the upgrading of metallurgical science and technology: develop intelligent manufacturing information infrastructure through industrial Internet, 5G and other technologies; Based on the data-driven concept, the application of big data, artificial intelligence (AI), edge computing and other technologies to improve the learning and cognitive ability of information systems to support the solution of practical problems such as unstable process control and frequent equipment failures in the smelting process; The use of virtual reality/augmented reality and other technologies to form human-machine collaborative hybrid enhanced intelligence, give full play to the wisdom of process technicians, machine intelligence advantages, mutual inspiration and value-added.

4. Implement strategic planning for the transformation of a metallurgical country into a powerful country

Demonstrate and formulate basic research action plans and engineering technology strategic development plans for the metallurgical industry to enhance the comprehensive level of science and technology in the metallurgical field; Improve the performance of industry technology and equipment, promote the green transformation and upgrading of the industry and the adjustment of production capacity layout, promote the development of high-end value chains, and fundamentally solve the industry development bottleneck of "shortage of traditional resources and serious environmental pollution". For the steel industry, not export-oriented as a way to resolve excess capacity; The export of pig iron, billet and other primary products is prohibited, the export of products with high energy consumption and low added value is strictly restricted, and the export of a large number of mid-range products is not encouraged; For the export of steel with high technical content, the export catalogue shall be adjusted in the form of dynamic management; Encourage processing into high-end manufactured products or mechanical and electrical products after re-export; Encourage the establishment of factories abroad, the implementation of nearby production and sales.

(2) Layout of green metallurgical technology development and major projects

1. Advanced layout without waste metallurgy subversive technology

In view of the many "stuck neck" technical problems faced by key strategic metals and their applications, basic research is strengthened, original theories are developed, and core key technologies are broken through.

First, increase the basic research investment in the direction of metallurgy + multi-field integration. Establish interdisciplinary research teams with experts in chemistry, physics, information, mathematics and other disciplines, and conduct joint research and focus on projects with open basic research funds, and projects set up by enterprises or local governments. The research focuses on the basic theories and technical principles of key technologies such as energy substitution, resource substitution, metallurgical transformation (such as hydrogen metallurgy), pollution reduction and carbon reduction, and strives to produce major original innovation results.

The second is to break through disruptive and core key technologies. Vigorously promote the technological change of the metallurgical industry, achieve the improvement of reaction efficiency from the atomic and molecular level, and strive to solve the problems of high energy consumption, high material consumption and high pollution in the metallurgical process from the source. To study and reveal the process mechanism of molecular movement, transfer, collision, adsorption and reaction under various environments and different scales in metallurgical process, and to coordinate the multi-scale regulation of molecular transfer and reaction process; Develop metallurgical process strengthening technologies, such as microreactors, super-gravity, microwave, process coupling, etc., and focus on developing forward-looking technologies such as hydrogen metallurgy, critical metallurgy, unconventional resource metallurgy, carbon-free aluminum metallurgy, arsenic metallurgy, and intelligent metallurgy.

2. Deployment of major innovation projects in the metallurgical industry

The first is the future resource/energy security innovation project. Comprehensive use of remote sensing, information and other technologies, the construction of resource management information system and information sharing mechanism. The main research contents include: (1) Intelligent steel smelting technology, intelligent design of iron and steel smelting from the basic science of materials (molecular and atomic microscopic dimensions), process technology science (process and equipment mesoscopic dimensions), process engineering science (process and factory macroscopic dimensions) and other aspects; ② Big data smelting steel technology, relying on the big data platform for online monitoring, blast furnace physical examination, report query, process calculation, real-time warning, quality traceability, furnace length report, expert consultation, etc.; ③ Intelligent robot full process smelting steel technology, instead of manual steel smelting full process production work, people from the bitter, tired, dirty, poor working environment to liberate, significantly improve production efficiency and product quality. In addition, demonstrate the development strategy of metal resources/energy, improve the constraint and management system related to resource protection; We will support the development of energy and resources in Marine and other fields and expand the channels for industrial resource supply. Encourage enterprises to "go out", high-quality participation in the development of global mineral resources and smelting technology industrialization application.

The second is the smelting innovation project of recycling renewable resources. In view of China has not yet established a perfect waste metal recycling system, facing the problems of weak industrial foundation, low concentration, technical equipment level and product added value to be improved, strengthen the basic research on recycling of renewable resources, establish efficient and clean separation extraction methods, develop primary smelting with urban mineral utilization technology, and achieve efficient recycling of resources. Build an integrated industrial chain including waste - recycling and processing (recycling) - products or production raw materials (recycling), alleviate resource constraints, reduce environmental pollution, and promote the development of social circular economy. The utilization and consumption of bulk solid waste and smelting slag in the process of mining resources development is also a subject of scientific and technological innovation research and development.

Third, clean energy alternative innovation project. Introduce clean energy such as hydrogen energy, solar energy, wind energy, hydropower, coal to gas, break through multi-energy synergistic and complementary technologies, and increase the proportion of clean energy use in the metallurgical industry; Develop new methods and paths for energy recovery such as waste heat utilization, form key processes and equipment, and promote cross-process and cross-industry energy recovery and utilization. The key research contents include: (1) Considering the ecological capacity of clean energy enrichment areas, encouraging the transfer of electrolytic aluminum production capacity to renewable power enrichment areas, from self-provided electricity to grid electricity conversion, and implementing emission reduction from the source; (2) Fully implement the transformation of natural gas to replace producer gas, and eliminate the production process of high energy consumption and high pollution gas; (3) Make full use of the calorific value of municipal waste, freeze and crush and partially replace pulverized coal to achieve circular economy industry link; Encourage enterprises to adjust the energy use structure, make full use of hydropower, wind power, photovoltaic, nuclear power and other resources, focus on promoting the application of hydropower, and promote the metallurgical industry carbon peak action.

The fourth is the clean smelting innovation project of the whole life cycle vision. For key categories such as steel and aluminum, promote the ecological design of the metallurgical industry, precise control of key production and pollution nodes, break through industrial link technologies such as cogeneration, promote the optimization of the whole process of resource and energy allocation, improve the level of pollution control technology, and achieve pollution and carbon reduction. (1) In the steel industry, a calculation method of the life cycle inventory of metallurgical products and a carbon footprint model of the steel industry reflecting the characteristics of closed-loop recycling were established; Combined with the progress of carbon capture technology, the flue gas recovery and treatment technology of CO2 capture in iron and steel smelting is developed, taking into account low-cost carbon capture and resource/productization. (2) In the aluminum industry, the bauxite mining link reduces the phenomenon of "mining rich and abandoning poor" in small mines, and reduces the mining loss by improving mining technology; The recovery rate of alumina in Bayer process was improved by technological progress in alumina smelting. The primary aluminum electrolytic link speeds up the elimination of backward electrolytic cells, and constantly improves the operation management and electrolytic operation level of electrolytic aluminum plants; Aluminum and final product production links to optimize the combination of electrolytic aluminum plant, casting plant, aluminum processing enterprises, improve the direct casting and rolling ratio of aluminum liquid (omits aluminum ingot and remelting links), reduce the amount of burn loss and energy consumption.

Fifth, the circular economy industrial innovation project. Establish new theories and methods for green extraction of complex mineral resources and recycling of secondary resources, and drive the upgrading of efficient utilization of resources. Guide the construction of intra-industry/cross-industry resource and energy links, optimize the allocation, supply and disposal of resource and energy utilization, and establish a regional multi-industry cycle model. The key research contents include: (1) Constructing the circular economic ecological chain of coke oven gas scale hydrogen production and petrochemical industry; (2) Establish a green process for the comprehensive and efficient utilization of oil, coal and natural gas resources to produce clean products, and form a complete set of technologies for coal gasification combined cycle polygeneration of chemicals; ③ Promote non-ferrous metals "raw material production + terminal application" connection development mode, through the upstream and downstream linkage to achieve high value-added utilization of resources, promote product consumption upgrade, promote "aluminum to save wood", "aluminum instead of steel", "aluminum instead of plastic" and so on; ④ Construction of "aluminum profiles - auto parts - building components - household products", "rare earth metals - new energy materials - new energy auto parts - power battery materials" and other industrial clusters; (5) Promote the integrated development path of mining, smelting and processing of the copper industry, support the integrated development of the aluminum industry with coal, electricity, chemical industry and clean energy, and form a number of distinctive industrial clusters.

The sixth is the non-ferrous and steel industry link innovation project. Strengthen the support for the green cycle of resources in the metallurgical industry, and break through key technologies such as the recovery of valuable elements of secondary materials and the recycling of associated metal solid waste. The key directions involve metal separation and resource extraction in ferrous and zinc-containing solid waste in the whole process of nonferrous and iron and steel, and multi-metal collaborative smelting in the process of nonferrous and iron and steel metallurgy, so as to reduce the dependence on mineral resources and improve the recovery rate of secondary and rare resources. We will carry out cross-industry and cross-departmental innovation industry chain projects, implement industrial chain coordination between mining and metallurgy, housing construction, transportation, environmental protection, and the environment, and promote the consumption of solid waste resources.