Estimation of the change in quality of domestic steel production affected by steel scrap exports

The total crude steel production in Asian countries was 500 million t in 2004, which accounted for 47 % of the total crude steel production in the world. There has been a large demand for steel scrap in Asian countries; Japan exported 2.5 million t of steel scrap to China, 1.91 million t to Korea and 0.9 million t to Taiwan in 2003. According to our previous studies, steel scrap generation in Japan will increase until 2030. A future change in steel scrap demand from Asian countries will greatly influence the amount and quality of Japan's steel scrap domestic consumption and exports. In this work, the change of quality was estimated for domestic steel production (electric arc furnace steel for buildings and construction) by the influence of steel scrap exports. A method based on the population balance model and material pinch analysis was applied to assess both the quality of domestic steel production and steel scrap consumption. Previous data concerning the quality (copper concentration) of steel scrap and the recovery ratio of steel scrap from post consumer products were updated. It was found that the quality requirements of steel scrap to other countries could have a large influence on the quality of domestic steel.