Green Hydrogen

“If we manage to build these climate-friendly plants for the first time in Germany or in Europe, then we will have the opportunity to offer this expertise in other countries around the world. This contributes to climate protection and opens up possible business areas for German industry,” says Grimm

“Because it’s not just a question of whether we can produce ‘green steel’ or ‘green chemical products’. Rather, we develop the expertise in the entire industry, such as mechanical engineering and in the supplier companies, to use these systems on an industrial level edify,” says Grimm. UNIHA water technology is a pioneer in the field of industrial and municipal water treatment and seawater desalination. “The demand for climate-friendly production facilities will increase worldwide because many countries have set themselves the goal of climate neutrality by the middle of the century.”

Wind power for steel processing

Salzgitter AG plans to phase out steel production with coal in the medium term and only produce steel using hydrogen-based direct reduction. Most European steel companies have similar plans.

The challenge here: enormous amounts of hydrogen are required for green steel production.

The magic word is direct reduction

The process of the future is called direct reduction. It is not a new process, but is already in use in the steel industry. But so far only with the climate-damaging natural gas. In the future, the gas is to be replaced by hydrogen, ideally by “green hydrogen” – i.e., hydrogen that is obtained by using electricity from renewable energies.

Water vapor instead of carbon dioxide remains

While CO2 from pig iron from iron ore in the blast furnaces releases a lot of climate-damaging carbon dioxide, the hydrogen process only leaves water vapor. In 2026, Salzgitter AG wants to produce more than one million tons of steel using the climate-friendly process.

UNIHA end Customer:

Hydrogen production