RFCS-Projekt DevH2forEAF

Developing and enabling H2 burner utilization to produce liquid steel in EAF — DevH2forEAF

Coor­di­na­tor
RINA Con­sul­ting — Cen­tro Svi­lup­po Mate­ria­li SpA

Pro­ject duration
01.07.2021 – 31.12.2024

Sum­ma­ry
The steel pro­duc­tion through elec­tric arc fur­naces (EAF) plays an incre­asing­ly important role in modern steel­works con­cepts. Today the elec­tric arc fur­nace steel of the over­all steel pro­duc­tion in the EU-28 is 41.5 % (69 Mtons/year).

With 81 % in Ita­ly and 61% in Spain, the pro­duc­tion of EAF steel is signi­fi­cant­ly hig­her than steel pro­duc­tion via the blast furnace/basic oxy­gen fur­nace rou­te (not con­side­ring Mem­ber Sta­tes having exclu­si­ve­ly EAF steel production).

In the modern EAF, the con­tri­bu­ti­on of the che­mi­cal ener­gy for the scrap mel­ting and refi­ning is the ran­ge of 25–45% of the total ener­gy requi­red. The Natu­ral Gas (NG) bur­ners pro­vi­de in the ran­ge of 40–80 kWh/t of energy.

It means that the pro­duc­tion of 100 tons of steel requi­res the com­bus­ti­on of 370–750 Nm3 of NG with CO2 emis­si­on of 0.75–1.5 tons. The sub­sti­tu­ti­on of just 10% of NG with hydro­gen in the who­le steel Euro­pean pro­duc­tion will bring a remar­kab­le reduc­tion of CO2 emis­si­on up to 0.1Mtons/year.

The main objec­ti­ve of the pre­sent pro­po­sal is to set up a bur­ner fed with hydro­gen to replace NG. Addres­sing this goal, many other aspects will be con­side­red. A com­pre­hen­si­ve ana­ly­sis of H2 hydro­gen bur­ners in EAF will per­mit to achie­ve the fol­lo­wing aims:

  • design and rea­liza­ti­on of bur­ners, able to work with NG/H2 mix­tu­re, up to 100% hydro­gen. The bur­ners will be desi­gned and manu­fac­tu­red to work in seve­re envi­ron­ment, thus ensu­ring mecha­ni­cal and ther­mal resis­tance in respect of EAF ope­ra­ti­ve conditions
  • track­ing the per­for­mance of hydro­gen bur­ner in repla­ce­ment of metha­ne or other car­bo­nace­ous fuels through com­bus­ti­on tri­als in pilot com­bus­ti­on cham­ber (befo­re indus­tri­al installation)
  • inves­ti­ga­ti­on of H2 injec­tion on steel qua­li­ty (pick-up of H2) through
  • risk ana­ly­sis for the defi­ni­ti­on of the cor­rect actions and coun­ter­me­a­su­res when hydro­gen is used in EAF pro­cess: safe­ty issues rela­ted to sto­rage, trans­port and injec­tion must be iden­ti­fied and risks minimized
  • ana­ly­sis the per­for­mance of hydro­gen bur­ner in repla­ce­ment of NG through expe­ri­men­tal tri­als at two indus­tri­al sites.

The results of this pro­ject will repre­sent a mile­stone for the uti­liza­ti­on of H2 in steel­ma­king and the first key step for the decar­bo­niza­ti­on of the steel industry.

fur­ther information:

This pro­ject recei­ves fun­ding from the Rese­arch Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) under the Grant Agree­ment num­ber 101034081.