Contributing with eco-friendly products

Our Group’s products have advanced functions and reliability, which are based on our superior technological capabilities, and are used in diverse areas including energy, transportation and construction equipment, and household products. They typically help our customers become more efficient while making their products lighter or lengthening product life. That translates into the saving of resources and energy, and into a reduction in CO2 emissions at the point of use at our customers, thereby contributing to lessening the environmental impact.

NSafe™-AutoConcept

NSafe™-AutoConcept

This is a next-generation steel car concept to realize significant weight reduction and improved safety. We have expanded our technical menu of materials development, structural and functional design, construction method development, and performance evaluation, and have also been proposing technologies to adapt to the next-generation mobility, such as electric-powered vehicles including EVs.

HRX19™ stainless steel for high-pressure hydrogen environments

HRX19™ stainless steel for high-pressure hydrogen environments

HRX19™ has the world’s top-level hydrogen embrittlement properties, and has 60% higher strength than conventional materials. It also can be welded. It is an advanced material that is safe, compact, and has a long product life, besides satisfying requirements for a hydrogen station.

High-efficiency electrical steel sheets

High-efficiency electrical steel sheets

Electrical steel sheets are used as the iron-core of motors for transformers, automobiles, home appliances, industrial machinery, and so on. By maximizing the magnetic properties of electrical steel sheets, the loss of electrical energy (iron loss) is reduced, contributing to energy conservation and CO2 emission reduction.

NSafe™-Hull, highly-ductile steel plates for shipbuilding

NSafe™-Hull, highly-ductile steel plates for shipbuilding

Having 50+% higher ductility than conventional steel, NSafe™-Hull is the world’s first steel that prevents oil leakage at the time of a ship’s collision, thereby contributing to preservation of the marine environment. It has been adopted for large-sized bulk carriers and ULCCs (Ultra Large Crude oil Carriers).

Mega NS Hyper Beam™

Mega NS Hyper Beam™

A new product, Mega NS Hyper Beam™, has about 20% greater web thickness than conventional fixed outside-width H-shaped steel of a large-sized cross section. Together with Nippon Steel’s nine conventional H-shaped steel products, the Mega NS Hyper Beam™ has acquired the EcoLeaf Environmental Label, an international certification program that discloses the quantitative environmental information related to LCA of products.

Wheelsets (wheels and axles) for high-speed railways

Wheelsets (wheels and axles) for high-speed railways

Nippon Steel manufactures almost all wheels and axles used by railways in Japan. We are pursuing weight reduction by reducing the thickness of wheels and developing hollow axles, for example, and contributing to improvement in energy efficiency in railway transport, together with high-strength, highly-durable rails and lightweight driving equipment.

Providing high-performance steel products and solutions that help reduce overall CO2 emissions

In addition to promoting drastic technological innovation in the steelmaking process, we are contributing to the realization of a carbon neutral society by providing high-performance steel products (Eco-Products) that help customers save energy and that reduces CO2 emissions when using final products.

Improvement of the capacity and quality of electrical steel sheets

As the world is rapidly moving toward decarbonization, regulations concerning energy efficiency of transformers have been tightened in a number of countries. With regard to grain-oriented (GO) electrical steel sheets used in the iron core of transformers, the need for higher-grade materials with less energy loss is anticipated to further increase. In the meantime, demand for high-efficiency high-grade non-oriented (NO) electrical steel sheets used in the iron core of electric vehicles (EVs) is also expected to dramatically increase, driven by accelerated growth in demand for EVs, along with the stricter regulations for CO2 emissions and average fuel economy for vehicles.

In order to respond quickly to this accelerating need, we decided to invest a total of ¥213 billion to improve the capacity and quality of electrical steel sheets at the Kyushu Works Yawata Area and the Setouchi Works Hirohata Area, and have been working to make this investment fully effective (increase NO production capacity to 5.0X) by the first half of fiscal 2024.

Construction of a next-generation hot strip mill and prod uction of ultra-high-tensile steel sheets

In the automotive industry, where global environmental regulations are showing a trend of tightening and where crashworthiness standards are becoming more stringent, demand for high-performance materials is expected to further grow in response to the need for lighter, stronger vehicle bodies.

For the foreseeable future, demand for electric and hybrid vehicles will have high growth potential, increasing needs for lighter and stronger vehicle bodies that support extended travel distance, heavier battery weight, and higher safety.

In response to these needs, we have decided to make strategic investment in a next-generation hot strip rolling mill (production capacity: approximately 6 million tons/year: commissioning in the first quarter of fiscal 2026) as a means of fundamentally strengthening our production system for ultra-high-tensile steel sheets and other high-performance steel sheets at the Nagoya Works — our core base for manufacturing automotive steel sheets.

Nippon steel’s steel products support diffusion of renewable energy

SuperDyma™, suitable for the supporting mount for solar power panels

SuperDyma™ is an eco-friendly building material that is highly corrosionresistant and lasts four times longer than conventional products. In particular it has recently been adopted for the supporting mount of solar power panels in various parts of Japan.

KATAMA™ SP use for solar power generation sites

KATAMA™ SP is a simple pavement material that makes use of steel slag’s characteristics of compacting in reaction to water. Due to its weed control effect, KATAMA™ SP is used for pavement at mega-solar panel power stations, to help maintain power generation efficiency and reduce mowing.

Steel materials (floating platforms, mooring chains) for offshore wind power generation

Unlike onshore wind farms, which cause wind noise and emit low frequency wavelength sound, offshore wind farms are drawing attention as Japan, an island country, has a long coast line and strong offshore wind tends to be steady. The Nipponsteel Group is developing high-strength, corrosion-resistant steel material with good workability, as well as the construction technology, contributing to improvement of offshore wind farms.

Geothermal power stations and seamless pipes for geothermal power generation

Geothermal power generation is promising as renewable energy use of which results in low CO2 emissions. Nippon Steel Engineering in the Nipponsteel Group has been responsible for the construction of production equipment and pipelines on nine of 17 large-scale geothermal power plants in Japan. The company thus has abundant construction achievements and knowhow.
Leveraging the technology accumulated in manufacturing OCTGs for deep-sea underwater oilfields where the steel is exposed to a highly-corrosive environment, Nipponsteel also provides seamless pipes, suitable to be used in geothermal power generation, which also involves a similar high-temperature, high-pressure, highly-corrosive environment.

Steel pipes, contributing to boost efficiency in pumped-storage hydroelectric power generation

This is a power generation method to make upper and lower reservoirs and release the pumped-storage water in the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir through turbines to produce electric power. In order to raise generation efficiency, high-strength, high-grade steel pipes were required to withstand increased water pressure due to greater elevation of water. Nipponsteel has successfully developed and commercialized Japan’s first 100kg-class steel used for a pressurized water pipe.

Solar power generation

Solar power generation

Offshore wind power generation

Offshore wind power generation

Geothermal power generation

Geothermal power generation

Pumped-storage hydroelectric power generation

Pumped-storage hydroelectric power generation

Acquisition of the “Eco-Leaf” environmental label

Nippon Steel has obtained the “Eco-Leaf” —an ecolabel certified by the Sustainable Management Promotion Organization (SuMPO), in compliance with the ISO 14025 international standards, for 47 products, representing more than 80% of its products.

The Eco-Leaf is an EPD1 certification program in use in Japan to disclose quantitative environmental information about the entire life cycle of a product, from resource mining and manufacturing to disposal and recycling. This allows customers to assess the environmental impact of the products they use.

1 EPD (Environment Product Declaration): The type III environmental label specified in the ISO 14025 international standard, which is designed to disclose quantitative environmental data certified by a third-party organization.

「エコリーフ」環境ラベル

Products that have acquired "Ecoleaf" since FY2021

  • Seamless, high-frequency welded well pipes/line pipes
  • lightweight welded H-beam
  • Steel plates for building structures
  • Tinplate, Tin Free Steel and Laminated steel sheets
  • High-tensile strength steel plates for building structures
  • Steel bars and wire products
  • Steel plates for structure
  • Steel sheets
  • Reduced-process steel bar and wire products
  • Container steel sheets
  • Rail products
  • Electrical steel sheets
  • Nickel plated steel sheet
  • Steel sheet pile products
  • General-purpose steel pipes (piping/structural pipes)
  • Titanium sheet
  • High-Alloy Oil Country Tubular Goods (OCTG) and Line Pipes

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