On February 15, Air Water received an order for one unit of air separation unit (ASU) from JFE Steel of steelmaker for its Chiba Area of East Japan Works. The order was intended to replace the existing ASU of the same area, and Air Water has got the order from JFE for the first time. The new unit will be put in operation from October 2026. The operation and management of the unit will be made by JFE Steel for itself.

The output capacities of the ASU are 30,000 Nm3/h for GO, 40,000 Nm3/h for GN and 1,000 Nm3/h respectively. Comparing with the old unit, the ASU gives so high energy efficiency though not disclosing details that the company now can realize more high-efficiency production and attain better production of high-quality gases than before and also can contribute to the reduction of CO2 emission of the Works. The design and construction will be dealt with by Air Water Engineering. The cost of the unit is not disclosed.

JFE Steel has been adopting Taiyo Nippon Sanso’s ASU at three locations of its East Japan Works (Chiba Area) and West Japan Works (Kurashiki of Okayama and Fukuyama of Hiroshima Areas) all of which are in operation now. As mentioned above, JFE Steel has adopted Air Water Group’s ASU for the first time.

Air Water commented about the order at this time saying, “We have been supplying gases to domestic steelmakers since 1960s, and in 2000s succeeded designing and fabricating business of Kobe Steel who developed ASU for the first time in Japan. Ever since our technological and production performances have been well evaluated, which seems to have resulted in our receiving the order at this time.”

Taking opportunity of this first experience, Air Water commented, “With this adoption our group’s ASU would be operated by all of the three major domestic steelmakers. We would like to present our proposals for JFE Steel Group’s future plan to renew the existing ASU or to construct a new unit in Japan or abroad.

In addition, regarding argon to be generated and available from ASU, we wish to contribute to supplying argon constantly to the semiconductor industry for which an increasing demand is anticipated.”