The steel and metallurgy sectors are composed of metal producing and metal processing industries, dependent on the supply of ore extraction. Steelmaking is responsible for producing steel, which is the result of mixing heated iron with carbon, while metallurgy processes various available metals, such as aluminium, copper, zinc, and lead, among others.

In Brazil, the steel industry park, composed of 30 mills managed by large business groups, employs directly about 120 thousand people, with an annual turnover of more than R$200 million, while the metallurgical chain has approximately 150 thousand companies, employing about 660 thousand direct workers and more than 2.4 million indirect workers, accounting for one of the largest slices of the national GDP.

Water cooling towers are used by steel and metallurgical plants to control the temperature of the equipment in the casting and machining processes, cooling the circulating water and lowering the high temperatures reached.