Recently, the Industry-University Cooperation Alliance for Eco-environment of China Association for Science and Technology (hereinafter referred to as the "Cooperation Alliance") held the "2022 Annual Conference on China Top Ten Technological Achievements in Ecological Environment" in Beijing. The project of "Collaborative Control Key Technologies and Applications for Pollution and Carbon Emission Reduction in the Steel Industry" led by Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences and jointly developed by Shougang Group, HBIS Group, CERI, University of Science and Technology Beijing and TSIC was successfully shortlisted. This is the only metallurgical project that made it to the top ten list this year.

The "China Top Ten Technological Achievements in Ecological Environment" is recommended by academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of Engineering, member units of the Cooperation Alliance, universities and research institutes. The evaluation committee will comprise of 15 academicians. After the presentation of the candidate projects, there is a session of expert questioning and project representatives' defense. Finally, the experts will be engaged in discussions, and a voting process will be conducted to determine the top ten advancements. The list represents the frontier development trend of China's eco-environmental science and technology field, which will provide scientific basis and technical support for the green and low-carbon sustainable development of China.

The Ironmaking, Storage and Transportation Institute of CERI Metallurgical Segment mainly undertakes the "development and application of low-pollution and low-carbon blast furnace ironmaking technology" in this project. The key technologies mainly include: Equalizing gas full recovery technology on the blast furnace (BF) top, which can ensure that the equalizing gas recovery rate reaches 100% without affecting the operation on the BF top. They also include an energy-saving and consumption-reducing rotary cutting top combustion type hot-blast stove with high blast temperature. Compared to traditional internal or external combustion type hot-blast stoves, it can increase the blast temperature by 20-50℃ under equivalent conditions, saving 6% to 10% of gas consumption, and the emission concentration of NOx of ≤30mg/m³ in flue gas can be achieved. The project not only achieved technical optimization to improve the energy efficiency of blast furnace smelting but also ensured that the pollutant contents in the top gas of the blast furnace and the flue gas of the hot-blast stove are below the national ultra-low emission limits.

The technology of the project has been successfully applied in more than 100 sets of projects in over 43 large-scale steel enterprises at home and abroad, such as Shougang Group, HBIS, steel enterprises from  Malaysia, etc., and supported Beijing Shougang Qian'an Steel Co., Ltd., Shougang Jingtang United Iron & Steel Co. Ltd., Tangsteel New Area and Hansteel Hanbao Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. (four long-process steel enterprises) to be  rated as Grade A environmental protection performance enterprises, with remarkable economic and social benefits.