News from the IOB

EU-funding for large-scale project HyInHeat

EU-gefördertes Großprojekt HyInHeat gestartet

With HyIn­Heat — Hydro­gen tech­no­lo­gies for decar­bo­ni­sa­ti­on of indus­tri­al hea­ting pro­ces­ses a lar­ge-sca­le pro­ject with 28 part­ners from 12 Euro­pean count­ries, coor­di­na­ted by the Depart­ment for Indus­tri­al Fur­naces and Heat Engi­nee­ring (IOB) star­ted. The kick-off mee­ting final­ly took place in Aachen at the end of January.

The con­sor­ti­um around the IOB has set its­elf the goal of demons­t­ra­ting the use of hydro­gen as fuel in the high-tem­pe­ra­tu­re pro­ces­ses of the steel and alu­mi­ni­um indus­try. Espe­ci­al­ly in the ener­gy-inten­si­ve pro­ces­ses of mel­ting and heat tre­at­ment, the repla­ce­ment of fos­sil fuels with green hydro­gen holds gre­at poten­ti­al to decrease CO2 emis­si­ons of indus­tri­al pro­ces­ses. In order to take account of the fact that lar­ge quan­ti­ties of green hydro­gen are not yet wide­ly available, the ope­ra­ti­on in a fuel mix of natu­ral gas and hydro­gen up to pure hydro­gen is being inves­ti­ga­ted. Ano­ther focus is on com­bus­ti­on with pure oxy­gen, which is a secon­da­ry pro­duct of green hydro­gen pro­duc­tion via elec­tro­ly­sis and enables an increase in com­bus­ti­on efficiency.

The pro­ject is loca­ted in the Tech­no­lo­gy Rea­di­ness Level (TRL) 3 to 7 and thus incor­po­ra­tes the deve­lo­p­ment stages from expe­ri­men­tal tech­no­lo­gy deve­lo­p­ment to pro­to­ty­pes in an indus­tri­al envi­ron­ment. Within this frame­work, eight fur­naces will be con­ver­ted on a pilot and indus­tri­al sca­le and the respec­ti­ve pro­ces­ses will be inves­ti­ga­ted in detail. The pro­ject, which is part of the Hori­zon Euro­pe fun­ding pro­gram­me, runs under the umbrel­la of the Processes4Planet Part­ner­ship. The cor­re­spon­ding EU-fun­ding is 17.7 mil­li­on euros, the total cost of the pro­ject is almost 24 mil­li­on euros.

For the kick-off mee­ting on the 31st of Janu­ary and the 1st of Febru­ary 2023, the IOB invi­ted the pro­ject part­ners to the Forum M in Aachen to get to know each other in per­son for the first time: At the begin­ning, Tho­mas Ech­ter­hof as pro­ject coor­di­na­tor wel­co­med the appro­xi­m­ate­ly 80 par­ti­ci­pan­ts. After the intro­duc­to­ry gree­tings by Prof. Her­bert Pfei­fer, Nico Schmitz gave an over­view of the con­tent of the pro­ject. The respon­si­ble EU Pro­ject Offi­cer then took the flo­or, fol­lo­wed by repre­sen­ta­ti­ves of A.SPIRE and the Clean Hydro­gen Part­ner­ship. After­wards, each part­ner had the chan­ce to intro­du­ce them­sel­ves to the con­sor­ti­um in short pre­sen­ta­ti­ons. The late after­noon was devo­ted to an intro­duc­tion to the first work packa­ge. After a short break, the­re was a gui­ded tour of Aachen’s his­to­ric old town fol­lo­wed by din­ner at Rats­kel­ler. The second day star­ted with visits to the IOB and the Insti­tu­te of Mine­ral Engi­nee­ring (GHI). From noon onwards, the con­tent of the pro­ject was in focus again and the remai­ning work packa­ges were dis­cus­sed, accom­pa­nied by many dis­cus­sions and con­ver­sa­ti­ons in the gene­rous­ly laid out breaks.

The part­ners from 12 Euro­pean count­ries include Arce­lor­Mit­tal, Cel­sa Group and SSAB, three steel pro­du­cers, and Befe­sa, Con­stel­li­um, Myti­li­ne­os and Spei­ra from the alu­mi­ni­um sec­tor. The auto­mo­ti­ve indus­try is repre­sen­ted by Toyo­ta. Lin­de and Nip­pon Gases act as gas sup­pli­ers and tech­no­lo­gy pro­vi­ders, and fur­nace manu­fac­tu­r­ers Danie­li, GHI Hor­nos and Sar­ral­le also con­tri­bu­te with their tech­ni­cal exper­ti­se. Indus­tri­al com­pe­tence in the refrac­to­ry sec­tor is repre­sen­ted by RHI Magen­si­ta and Mor­gan Advan­ced Mate­ri­als, and in the field of mea­su­re­ment tech­no­lo­gy SICK and Lux­met sup­port the other pro­ject part­ners with their know-how. The Euro­pean asso­cia­ti­ons ESTEP and Euro­pean Alu­mi­ni­um con­tri­bu­te with the coll­ec­tion and pro­vi­si­on of data for sce­na­rio ana­ly­ses and help with the dis­se­mi­na­ti­on of the results. As an expert in Euro­pean pro­jects, EGEN and its online mar­ke­ting part­ner Cloud­sel­ling will also pro­vi­de signi­fi­cant sup­port to the con­sor­ti­um in publi­shing the results.

With Tecna­lia, Ceit, SWERIM and the Bar­ce­lo­na Super­com­pu­ting Cen­ter, four rese­arch insti­tu­ti­ons are repre­sen­ted. From aca­de­mia, in addi­ti­on to the Uni­ver­si­ty of Oulu, the Nor­we­gi­an NTNU and the Poli­tec­ni­co de Mila­no, RWTH Aachen Uni­ver­si­ty is repre­sen­ted by three depart­ments. The Insti­tu­te of Mine­ral Engi­nee­ring (GHI) is dedi­ca­ted to refrac­to­ry fur­nace mate­ri­als. Samples from the indus­tri­al plants as well as new­ly deve­lo­ped mate­ri­als are exami­ned for their inter­ac­tion with the new fur­nace atmo­sphe­res, which chan­ge in terms of tem­pe­ra­tures and atmo­sphe­re com­pared to com­bus­ti­on with natu­ral gas. Fol­lo­wing a series of expe­ri­ments in the institute’s own sphe­ri­cal com­bus­ti­on cham­ber, the Insti­tu­te for Com­bus­ti­on Tech­no­lo­gy (ITV) pro­vi­des the kine­tic reac­tion mecha­nism for hydro­gen com­bus­ti­on, which maps the com­bus­ti­on reac­tions in sub­se­quent CFD simu­la­ti­ons. Tog­e­ther with the Bar­ce­lo­na Super­com­pu­ting Cen­ter, a metho­do­lo­gy for the lar­ge-eddy simu­la­ti­on (LES) of hydro­gen com­bus­ti­on is being deve­lo­ped, by means of which the fla­me dyna­mics can be pre­dic­ted under given ope­ra­ting conditions.

In addi­ti­on to the pro­ject coor­di­na­ti­on, IOB also con­tri­bu­tes to the spe­ci­fic work packa­ges of the pro­ject. For exam­p­le, the influence of impu­ri­ties in the fuel on the instru­men­ta­ti­on of the gas sup­p­ly and the bur­ner ope­ra­ti­on is being tes­ted in the in-house tech­ni­cal cent­re. The chan­ged con­di­ti­ons in the flue gas due to the increased water con­tent are ana­ly­sed with regard to the neces­sa­ry adjus­t­ments in the field of emis­si­on mea­su­re­ment tech­no­lo­gy. The con­ven­tio­nal mea­su­re­ment of nitro­gen oxi­de emis­si­ons in dry exhaust gas must be cri­ti­cal­ly ques­tio­ned in this con­text, so that alter­na­ti­ve mea­su­re­ment prin­ci­ples will be eva­lua­ted. In the area of model­ling and simu­la­ti­on, the acti­vi­ties focus on the mode­ling of sin­gle bur­ners as well as enti­re fur­naces, inclu­ding the pro­ducts and peri­phe­ral plant com­pon­ents. In addi­ti­on to direct hea­ting in mel­ting fur­naces for the alu­mi­ni­um indus­try and hea­ting fur­naces for hot forming of steel, indi­rect hea­ting with radi­ant hea­ting tubes is also being inves­ti­ga­ted. For the simu­la­ti­on, the increased water con­tent in the flue gas results in dif­fe­rent con­di­ti­ons com­pared to natu­ral gas, so that sui­ta­ble models for radi­ant hea­ting are eva­lua­ted. A reasonable nume­ri­cal effort is achie­ved by Rey­nolds Aver­a­ged Navi­er Sto­kes (RANS) simu­la­ti­ons, which are sol­ved on the part­ly new­ly crea­ted ser­ver capa­ci­ties at the IOB. The metho­do­lo­gy is vali­da­ted against the accu­ra­te LES simu­la­ti­on results and data from the labo­ra­to­ries and indus­try demons­tra­tors. The simu­la­ti­ons sup­port the design of bur­ners, fur­nace pro­ces­ses and the con­ver­si­on of exis­ting plants to run on hydro­gen. In par­al­lel, the life cycle assess­ments of the pro­ces­ses and pro­ducts are con­ti­nuous­ly eva­lua­ted to ensu­re the achie­ve­ment of the over­all pro­ject goal: To make a major con­tri­bu­ti­on to the decar­bo­ni­sa­ti­on of the steel and alu­mi­ni­um industry.

 

Fun­ded by the Euro­pean Uni­on. Views and opi­ni­ons expres­sed are howe­ver tho­se of the author(s) only and do not neces­s­a­ri­ly reflect tho­se of the Euro­pean Uni­on or the Euro­pean Health and Digi­tal Exe­cu­ti­ve Agen­cy (HADEA). Neither the Euro­pean Uni­on nor the gran­ting aut­ho­ri­ty can be held respon­si­ble for them.

 

Cont­act per­son
Dr.-Ing. Tho­mas Ech­ter­hof, pro­ject coor­di­na­tor and aca­de­mic direc­tor
Depart­ment for Indus­tri­al Fur­naces and Heat Engi­nee­ring of RWTH Aachen Uni­ver­si­ty
Koper­ni­kus­str. 10
52074 Aachen GERMANY
+49 241 80–25958
echterhof@iob.rwth-aachen.de