From scrap to body steel

The automotive industry must reduce both emissions during operations and the ecological footprint of production. With electrification, the focus is increasingly on "embedded emissions", especially from steel production. Steel accounts for 50 to 66 percent of vehicle weight and is the second largest source of production emissions in electric cars after the battery. The decarbonization of the steel industry is therefore considered a key issue. The switch from coal-based blast furnaces to hydrogen-based direct reduction and electric arc furnaces opens up new avenues, especially through more use of recycled scrap. However, the quality of scrap remains problematic: End-of-life vehicles (ELVs) deliver large quantities, but high copper contamination prevents them from being used in high-quality flat steel. With increasing vehicle electrification, this problem is exacerbated. Against this background, the Institut Mobilités en Transition has examined "deep dismantling". The results were published in the report "Car-to-Car-Steel - Potential of End-of-Life Vehicle deep-dismantling and use of copper depolluted steel scrap to decarbonize automotive flat steel production".