RFCS-Projekt GREENEAF

Sustainable EAF steel production

In the modern elec­tric arc fur­nace (EAF) more than 40% of ener­gy comes from che­mi­cal sources by fos­sil fuels: natu­ral gas is used in dedi­ca­ted bur­ner during the mel­ting of the scrap while coal (main­ly anthr­aci­te), lump in the bas­ket and pul­veri­zed by wall injec­tor, is used as foa­ming agent. In the frame of the Euro­pean Rese­arch Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS), pro­ject GREENEAF, was car­ri­ed out with the objec­ti­ve to replace coal and natu­ral gas in EAF with char and sysn­gas pro­du­ced by bio­mass pyrolisis.

Gene­ral­ly spea­king, in the elec­tric fur­nace coal (and con­se­quent­ly char) is used as injec­ted pow­der or char­ged into the bas­ket. The syn­gas can be used for EAF bur­ners.
The cha­rac­te­ristics of char and bio­gas, and the rela­ted pyro­ly­sis pro­cess, are tail­o­red in order to match the requi­re­ments for their uti­liza­ti­on in EAF. The fol­lo­wing acti­vi­ties have been car­ri­ed out within the project:

  • Bio­mass sel­ec­tion and clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on respect their ori­gin and cha­rac­te­ri­sa­ti­on activities
  • Tail­oring of bio­mass pyro­ly­sis: Labo­ra­to­ry tests to defi­ne the pyro­ly­sis kine­tics of the sel­ec­ted bio­mass, and on the basis of the­se results design of indus­tri­al pyro­ly­sis; then che­mi­cal and phy­si­cal cha­rac­te­riza­ti­on of char pro­du­ced by bio­mass pyro­ly­sis has been car­ri­ed out to defi­ne pyro­ly­sis plant pro­cess para­me­ters. About fif­teen tons of char has been pro­du­ced for indus­tri­al trials
  • EAF pilot plant expe­ri­men­ta­ti­on: First tests of char uti­liza­ti­on have been car­ri­ed out in the pilot Furnace
  • Indus­tri­al expe­ri­men­ta­ti­on: indus­tri­al tests with char have been car­ri­ed out
  • Simu­la­ti­on of syn­gas uti­liza­ti­on: due to the dif­fi­cul­ties to have syn­gas available clo­se to the steel plant syn­gas uti­liza­ti­on for EAF bur­ners has been simu­la­ted by CFD calculation.

The results obtai­ned have demons­tra­ted the tech­ni­cal fea­si­bi­li­ty of the used approa­ches while the eco­no­mic­al eva­lua­ti­on have show­ed the sus­taina­bi­li­ty of repla­cing the coal with char from bio­mass, in addi­ti­on to envi­ron­men­tal bene­fits due to CO2 reduc­tion, even if at the moment the­re is not a real asses­sed mar­ket of char­co­al for steel­ma­king purposes.

Green fuel for steel furnaces

Publications

Ech­ter­hof, T.; Pfei­fer, H.: Poten­ti­al of bio­mass usa­ge in elec­tric steel­ma­king, EECRs­teel 2011, 1st Inter­na­tio­nal Con­fe­rence on Ener­gy Effi­ci­en­cy and CO2 Reduc­tion in the Steel Indus­try, 27. Juni – 1. Juli 2011, Düsseldorf

Ech­ter­hof, T.; Pfei­fer, H.: Stu­dy on biochar usa­ge in the elec­tric arc fur­nace, 2nd Inter­na­tio­nal Con­fe­rence Clean Tech­no­lo­gies in the Steel Indus­try, 26.–28. Sep­tem­ber 2011, Buda­pest, Ungarn

Demus, T.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Pfei­fer, H.: Repla­ce­ment of fos­sil car­bon with bio­ge­nic resi­dues in the elec­tric steel­ma­king Pro­cess, Inter­na­tio­nal Work­shop EAF Per­spec­ti­ves on Auto­ma­ti­on, Mate­ri­als, Ener­gy & Envi­ron­ment, 29.–30. März 2012, Mai­land, Italien

Demus, T.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Pfei­fer, H.; Schul­ten, M.; Noel, Y.; Quicker, P.: Inves­ti­ga­ti­ons on the use of bio­ge­nic resi­dues as a sub­sti­tu­te for fos­sil coal in the EAF steel­ma­king pro­cess, 10th Euro­pean Elec­tric Steel­ma­king Con­fe­rence, 25.–28. Sep­tem­ber 2012, Graz, Österreich

Bian­co, L.; Bar­ac­chi­ni, G.; Ciril­li, F.; di San­te, L.; Morico­ni, A.; Morico­ni, E.; Ago­rio, M. M.; Pfei­fer, H.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Demus, T.; Jung, H. P.; Bei­ler, C.; Krass­nig, H.-J.: Sus­tainable Elec­tric Arc Fur­nace Steel Pro­duc­tion: Gree­nE­AF, 10th Euro­pean Elec­tric Steel­ma­king Con­fe­rence, 25.–28. Sep­tem­ber 2012, Graz, Österreich

Bian­co, L.; Bar­ac­chi­ni, G.; Ciril­li, F.; di San­te, L.; Morico­ni, A.; Morico­ni, E.; Ago­rio, M. M.; Pfei­fer, H.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Demus, T.; Jung, H. P.; Bei­ler, C.; Krass­nig, H.-J.: Sus­tainable Elec­tric Arc Fur­nace Steel Pro­duc­tion: Gree­nE­AF, BHM Berg- und Hüt­ten­män­ni­sche Monats­hef­te 158 (2013), Nr. 1, pp. 17–23

Schul­ten, M.; Pena Chip­a­tecua, G.; Quicker, P.; Demus, T.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Pfei­fer, H.: Biochar as a sub­sti­tu­te for fos­sil car­bon sources in the cupo­la and elec­tric arc fur­nace, 2nd Nor­dic Biochar Semi­nar, 14.–15. Febru­ar 2013, Hel­sin­ki, Finnland

Bei­ler, C.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Demus, T.: Use of Alter­na­ti­ve Car­bon Car­ri­ers from Rene­wa­ble Sources at EAF Sie­gen, Pro­cee­dings of the ISIJ-VDEh-Jern­kon­to­ret Joint Sym­po­si­um, 15.–16. April 2013, Osa­ka, Japan

Rei­chel, T.; Demus, T.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Pfei­fer, H.: Incre­asing the sus­taina­bi­li­ty of the steel pro­duc­tion in the elec­tric arc fur­nace by sub­sti­tu­ting fos­sil coal with biochar, 4. Mit­tel­eu­ro­päi­sche Bio­mas­se­kon­fe­renz, 15.–18. Janu­ar 2014, Graz, Österreich

Demus, T.; Rei­chel, T.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Pfei­fer, H.: Biochar Usa­ge in EAF-Steel­ma­king Poten­ti­al and Fea­si­bi­li­ty, 1st Euro­pean Steel Tech­no­lo­gy & Appli­ca­ti­on Days (ESTAD) & 31st Jour­nées Sidérur­gi­ques Inter­na­tio­na­les (JSI), 7.–8. April 2014, Paris, Frankreich

Demus, T.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Rei­chel, T.; Pfei­fer, H.: Ver­wen­dung von bio­ge­nen Kar­bo­ni­sa­ten im Elek­tro­stahl­ver­fah­ren, DGMK-Fach­be­reichs­ta­gung: Kon­ver­si­on von Bio­mas­se, 12.–14. Mai 2014, Roten­burg a. d. Fulda

Final Report

Bian­co, L.; Bar­ac­chi­ni, G.; Ciril­li, F.; Morico­ni, A.; Morico­ni, E.; Mar­cos, M.; Demus, T.; Ech­ter­hof, T.; Pfei­fer, H.; Bei­ler, C.; Gries­sa­cher, T.: Sus­tainable EAF steel pro­duc­tion (GREENEAF), EUR 26208, Publi­ca­ti­ons Office of the Euro­pean Uni­on, (2013), Luxem­bourg, ISBN 978–92-79–33614‑0

The rese­arch lea­ding to the­se results has recei­ved fun­ding from the Euro­pean Community’s Rese­arch Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS) under grant agree­ment n° RFSR-CT-2009–00004.