Alessandro Della Rocca

Business development manager(Hydrogen) at Tenova SpA

Abstracts: Decarbonizing the hot rolling process

Reducing CO₂ emissions in steel production from the reduction of iron ores requires relevant investment and a step change in technology, passing from the traditional blast furnace process to a hydrogen-based direct reduction process. The case of steel production from the scrap route is rather different, since for reducing the carbon intensity it suffices to use green electricity in electric arc furnaces. This CO₂ reduction is anyway limited and additional decarbonization of steel production from the scrap route must focus on heating and heat treatment furnaces, which generate a good amount of the total carbon footprint. This is even more important in plate mills and tube mills, where the hot rolling processes generate a relevant portion of total CO₂ emission.

In order to tackle this issue, Tenova developed a modular approach able to promote decarbonization of heating furnaces in a stepwise fashion, by minimizing capital investment and diluting it along the decarbonization curve. Technologies for enhanced energy efficiency, together with the exploitation of available green electricity and the installation of hydrogen-ready combustion systems are the main building blocks of this approach to a sustainable decarbonization strategy of hot rolling processes.

Biography:

Alessandro Della Rocca works as Business Development Manager at Tenova SpA. He focuses on the development of energy transition opportunities in the metals industry, with particular attention to the decarbonization of heating furnaces.

He has thirteen years of experience in developing low-NOx high-efficiency combustion systems for reheating and heat treatment furnaces.

He is Board member of the Italian Section of the Combustion Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Mathematical Engineering and a M.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering both from Politecnico di Milano.