A research project to establish decarbonization technologies for the steelmaking industry has been awarded a €1.8 million research grant from the European Union (EU) via the Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS).
The programme aims to establish a process for injecting hydrogen using plant supplier Primetals Technologies’ Sequence Impulse Process (SIP) technology directly into the blast furnace via the shaft. In addition to the grant, contributions will be made by each of the research partners, bringing the total project value to €3.5 million.
Building on the available SIP injection technology, as already utilized on a large blast furnace at thyssenkrupp Steel Europe’s Schwelgern site in Germany, the research aims to simulate that hydrogen can be pulse-injected into the blast furnace shaft.
This project, which will conclude in 2028, brings together a consortium of major European players within the iron and steelmaking sector to take the concept from laboratory to industrial demonstration. The key technology will be designed and provided by thyssenkrupp with furnace integration design and full-scale economic evaluation by Primetals Technologies. Analysis and modelling will be conducted by the research institutes VDEh-Betriebsforschungsinstitut, which also is the project co-ordinator, and K1-MET. thyssenkrupp Steel Europe will provide the industrial scale laboratory work fabrications and material burdening capabilities, with steel and technology group voestalpine completing the consortium as the hosts for the trial process with helium injection in the shaft to prove the simulations for gas distribution to be placed on an operating blast furnace at its works in Linz, Austria.