2nd International Conference on Sustainable Cokemaking and Ironmaking (ICSCI 2025)
University of Newcastle, Australia
16th – 19th March 2025
By Sam Reis, Materials & Manufacturing Academy, Swansea University
The 2nd International Conference on Sustainable Ironmaking and Cokemaking was held at Newcastle city hall, hosted by the BHP Centre for Sustainable Steelmaking Research and supported by the University of Newcastle, National Institute of Energy Resources, BHP and Hatch. The event brought together academia and industry from across the globe with representatives from Tata Steel Europe, Nippon Steel Corporation, China Baowu Group and JSW Steel giving keynote addresses.
Newcastle has a long history of steel production and research with the Newcastle (BHP) steelworks at one time being one of the biggest employers in the country (1915-1999). Despite the closure of the steelworks the city is an amazing place with great museums, restaurant and of course beaches. Steel research is well and truly alive with the institute, currently hosting 15 researchers and 8 postgraduate students.
The evening reception on the Sunday was an excellent opportunity to get to know my fellow attendees over some drinks and some fantastic canapes.
The talks kicked off bright and early at 08:30 with an introduction from the conference organisers and sponsors leading into the first keynote talks. These first three talks covered emissions reduction in South Korea, Sweden and China respectively with each country playing to its strengths with their decarbonisation strategies. These talks stressed the importance of locally sourced resources to strengthen supply security and reduce emissions, for Korea and China this was through the transition to hydrogen-based reduction and electric steelmaking. Whereas in Sweden the increased use of biomass will be an effective strategy.
The afternoon heralded the beginning of the breakout rooms with talks on biomass utilisation, low-emission steelmaking, modelling, raw materials and decarbonisation pathways. These fantastic presentations ranged from PhD projects to industrial trials and provided insight into the interesting work happening across the world.
The second day started with four keynote speakers from India, Japan, The Netherlands and Australia and their development of pathways for decarbonisation using a combination of modified blast furnaces, direct reduced iron and electric arc furnaces. The breakout sessions continued the previously mentioned topics with the addition of a fundamental and kinetics stream. This is where I presented my work on “Heat flow in packed beds for energy recovery from iron ore sinter”.
To round off the conference, a 6am coach pickup took us to the Bluescope steel plant in Wollongong. The Port Kembla steelworks produce over 3 million tonnes of crude steel per annum through the blast furnace route. The tour took us to the coke ovens, sinter plant, blast furnace, rolling mill and BOS furnace with experienced tour guides and operators answering any questions. The ability to get up close and personal with the steelmaking process really put the scale of the research presented at the conference into perspective.
Whilst in Newcastle and Sydney I took part in Parkrun which was a great way of seeing the cities while chatting with local residents. I did plenty of swimming in the sea baths and went to a rugby game in Sydney after a day of exploring the sights of Sydney.
