POSCO develops stainless steel for premium home appliances

South Korea’s steel giant POSCO announced on Thursday that it has developed high-strength stainless steel materials based on the proprietary technologies held by its Technical Research Laboratories.

Stainless steel is a material widely used in high-end appliances due to its attractive surface and high resistance to corrosion.

The newly developed material by POSCO, called "430DP," has 50% higher strength compared to the conventional stainless steel used in home appliances, allowing for a 20% reduction in product thickness. This enables manufacturers to produce more products with the same weight, leading to cost savings.

Typically, increasing the strength of stainless steel requires the addition of alloying elements such as silicon or additional cold-rolling processes. However, these methods have limitations in enhancing strength.

To overcome these challenges, the researchers at the Technical Research Laboratories utilized the characteristic of a specific stainless steel that transforms into a solid metal structure with strong properties when the heat treatment temperature is increased, leading to the commercialization of the technology.

The 430DP won the gold award in the new technology category at the 27th WorldStainless Conference held from May 10 to 12.

POSCO plans to standardize the detailed operating conditions of the relevant plants to commence full-scale production in line with the new stainless steel product.

Write to Jae-Fu Kim at hu@hankyung.com