[ Carbon Reduction ]
[ Carbon Reduction ]
European Commission backs RINA ’ s Hydra Project for near-zero emission steel
The multinational engineering consultancy , inspection , and certification company , RINA , has announced the commencement of the six-year Hydra project to build a 100 % hydrogen-fuelled pilot plant . This ambitious open research project will provide ground-breaking near-zero carbon technology and capabilities to the international steel industry .
Text & images by RINA
Funded by the European Commission ’ s NextGenerationEU plan and backed by the Italian Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy through RINA ’ s Centro Sviluppo Materiali ( CSM ) in Castel Romano ( Italy ), the EUR 88M R & D Hydra project is part of the IPCEI ( Important Projects of Common European Interest ). The hydrogenfuelled pilot plant will comprise a 30m high direct iron ore reduction ( DRI ) tower , an electric arc furnace EAF and a reheating furnace that will all operate with near zero emissions for the production of all types of ‘ green steel ’.
Reducing CO 2 from tonnes to kgs Each tonne of steel manufactured using a blast furnace produces up to two tonnes of CO2 . Although the use of an electric arc furnace ( EAF ) reduces this to 0.68 tonnes , the average for total global steel production currently sits at 1.63 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel . The open research Hydra project aims to reduce emissions to mere kilograms of CO2 per tonne of steel and will make this worldchanging technology available to the industry on the way to net zero . Ugo Salerno , Chairman and CEO of RINA , says , “ The new plant will make the entire steel production process cleaner . It will further provide a fully open testing facility available to steelmakers worldwide to meet the decarbonisation challenge and prove the quality of steel produced using hydrogen instead of carbon-based energy sources .”
DRI tower The DRI tower , which reduces iron ore ( oxide ) into metallic iron , will initially run on natural gas . The project team will then assess production using a gas mixture with increasing levels of hydrogen and , ultimately , 100 % hydrogen . The testing results will establish the quality of steel produced using hydrogen as the reducing agent in the DRI
46 Stainless Steel World December 2023 www . stainless-steel-world . net