Life cycle assessment of steel production in Poland: a case study

• An environmental assessment of steel production in Poland.
• Different environmental impact categories of steel production.
• Alternative solid fuels used for iron making.

The goal of this study is to perform a life cycle assessment (LCA) of steel production through the integrated steel production and electric arc furnace routes in Poland. The study defines the major sources of environmental impacts and proposes pollution prevention methods for the most pollutive steelmaking processes. The LCA methodology based on the ISO 14044 standard is used with SimaPro 7.3.3 software and the Ecoinvent database. The life cycle inventory shows data averaged from the existing steel plants in Poland, and the impact assessment results indicate that the production of pig iron in blast furnaces has the highest impact on greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption in the national integrated steel production route, while the iron ore sintering process, which is the largest contributor to dust and gas emissions in the national iron and steel industry, uses the most minerals and depletes the most metal. Electricity consumption has the highest impact on greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel consumption in the national electric arc furnace route. Therefore, this article presents the results of an LCA of alternative fuel consumption in a national iron ore sinter plant. The study concludes that pollution prevention methods related to raw material substitutions in iron-making processes should be used to reduce environmental impacts in the iron and steel industry. The results of this study can be used as the first step in performing a full cradle-to-grave steel LCA that includes all phases of the steel life cycle.