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Electrical Heat Exchangers
Dilip Chandrasekaran, Senior Vice President and Director of Business Development at Kanthal.
“ You can retrofit an existing furnace simply by replacing the gas burners with tubes and electric heating elements and making a few small modifications,” explains Chandrasekaran.“ That alone improves efficiency, process stability, and the work environment.”
Industries already electrifying Efficiency gains, peak performance, energy security concerns, and even regulatory mandates are already propelling industries relying on hightemperature processes to phase out fossil fuels. Even for one of the hardest-to-abate sectors, steel, Kanthal has identified three heating processes in downstream production ready for electrification – the Continuous Annealing Line( CAL), Continuous Galvanizing Line( CGL), and Roller Hearth Furnaces. Through decades of working with industrial heating solutions, Kanthal has developed a broad portfolio fit for applications depending on the temperature requirements and atmospheric conditions across key industries like lithium-ion, glass, aluminum, ceramics, and semiconductors among others. Kanthal can also customize its products and designs to suit specific requirements.
Prothal ®: Enabling electrification in heavy industries One of the biggest challenges in industrial electrification has been high-temperature gas heating, a crucial process in steel, petrochemicals, cement, and other heavy industries. Kanthal’ s Prothal ® electric process gas heater was developed to solve this problem, offering a high-efficiency alternative to fossil-fired gas heaters. Originally tested for HYBRIT( Hydrogen Breakthrough Ironmaking Technology), a joint initiative by SSAB, LKAB, and Vattenfall, Prothal ® proved that electric heating could support hydrogen-based DRI process by delivering precise, high-temperature process gas heating at scale. The same technology is being / could be adapted for a range of heavy industries.
Kanthal’ s process gas heater, Prothal ®.
The Prothal ® portfolio, under development, has the potential to deliver outlet temperatures up to 1,100 ° C( 2,012 ° F) and operate efficiently across gas compositions, including 100 percent hydrogen, hydrogen-nitrogen blends, and air. Other technologies are currently under development that can reach even higher temperatures for example the ELECTRA project requires systems that can reach over 1,200 ° C( 2,192 ° F). The ELECTRA project, with a budget of € 20 million, partly funded by the EU’ s Horizon Europe program, is a groundbreaking initiative to drive sustainability in the cement, lime, and pulp industries. By uniting 17 partners from eight countries, the project is poised to transform these sectors through advanced, electricity-based technologies that are scalable and modular.“ All over the world, governments are requiring companies to move away from fossil fuels, and most major steelmakers are looking for ways to reduce their emissions,” says Chandrasekaran.“ Only they can make the decision, but once they do, we have the expertise and experience to make the switch to electric happen.”
Challenges of electrification and how to overcome them Despite the clear advantages, large-scale industrial electrification requires careful planning.
1. Power supply and infrastructure The availability of enough electrical capacity and the infrastructure to support it continue to be the biggest roadblocks that prevent the rapid adoption of industrial electrification. Moreover, electric heating can fully eliminate CO2 emissions, however, for this to happen, access to fossil-free electricity is a must. According to the International Energy Agency, by 2030, renewables are expected to approach a 50 % share of the global electricity mix, up from around 30 % today. Heat pumps and other electric heating systems will be outselling fossil fuel boilers globally, and investments in new offshore wind projects will be three times higher than those in new coal and gas-fired power plants.
2. Efficiency calculations Chandrasekaran notes that while thermal engineering calculations can compare the efficiency of electric solutions to gas-fired systems, accuracy remains a concern.“ Steel companies tend to have limited knowledge of the impact that changes in heat transfer and efficiency may have on the properties of their end product,” he adds. This is why stepwise conversion, pilot-scale testing, and modeling are crucial in electrification for specific processes.
3. What to electrify? Chandrasekaran explains that identifying suitable processes for conversion is a major obstacle in electrifying steel production. While certain processes may lend themselves easily to electrification, others, present unique complexities due to temperature requirements and operating conditions.
22 Heat Exchanger World April 2025 www. heat-exchanger-world. com