The main objective of H2PlasmaRed is to develop hydrogen plasma smelting reduction (HPSR) technology for the reduction of iron ores and steelmaking sidestreams to meet the targets of the European Green Deal for reducing CO2 emissions and supporting the circular economy in the steel industry across Europe. Our ambition is to introduce a near CO2-free reduction process to support the goal of the Paris Agreement - a 90% reduction in the carbon intensity of steel production by 2050. To achieve this, H2PlasmaRed will develop HPSR from TRL5 to TRL7 by demonstrating the HPSR in a pilot-HPSR reactor (hundred-kilogram-scale) that is an integrated part of a steel plant, and in a pilot-scale DC electric arc furnace (5-ton scale) by retrofitting the existing furnace. The project's end goal is to establish a way to upscale the process from pilot-scale into industrial practice. To support this goal, the novel sensors and models developed and implemented in the project are used for HPSR process optimization from a reduction, resource, and energy efficiency standpoint.

CaLby2030 will be the enabling tool to achieve commercial deployment from 2030 of Calcium Looping using Circulating Fluidised Bed technology, CFB-CaL. Three TRL6 pilot plants across Europe (Sweden, Germany and Spain) will be developed for testing under industrially relevant operating conditions. To maximise impact, these pilots will investigate the decarbonisation of hard to abate CO2 emission sources: flue gases from modern and future steel-making processes that rely mainly on electricity, emissions from modern cement plants that cannot escape from the use of limestone, and from Waste-to-Energy and Bio-CHP power plants that fill the gap in scalable dispatchable power and allow for negative emissions. These pilots will collectively generate a database of over 4000 hours of operation. This data will be interpreted using advanced modelling tools to enable the scale-up of the key CO2 capture reactors to fully commercial scale. Process techno-economic simulation, cluster optimisation and Life Cycle Analysis will be performed to maximise renewable energy inputs and materials circularities. All this information will form the basis for undertaking FEED studies for the demonstration plants in at least four EU locations. Innovative CFB-CaL solutions will be developed and tested to reach >99% CO2 capture rates, reaching for some process schemes costs as low as 30 €/tCO2 avoided and energy intensities with Specific Primary Energy Consumption per CO2 Avoided below 0.8 MJ/kgCO2 when O2 from electrolysers is readily available as an industrial commodity. Societal scientists and environmental economists will assess the social acceptability and preferences for “zero” or “negative emissions” CaL demonstration projects with novel methodologies that will elucidate and help to overcome current societal barriers for the implementation of CCUS. The consortium includes the world-leading CFB process technology developer, key end user industries and leading academics including CaL pioneers.

The objective of the project PURESCRAP is to increase the use of low-quality scrap grades (post-consumer scrap) by deploying and applying best available technologies to reduce impurities. This is achieved through novel sensor combinations and analysis supported by artificial intelligence. A key part is the connection between scrap sorter and the steel industry which are the consumers of the scrap. This ensures that there is a demand for the enhanced purification and valorisation methods. The steel industry also enables the industrial scale verification of the PURESCRAP methods, where sorted scrap is used for steelmaking in semi-industrial and industrial scale. The shredding process is identified as the most promising method leading to impurity liberation and later removal, for which the site of the Swedish scrap supplier STENA is chosen for demonstration. With a better analysis of the scrap material after the sorting and preparation chain, appropriate material handling can be optimised for desired outputs. During the project, sensor stations will be integrated in the two separate processing chains for heavy (cut) and shredded scrap. The proposed innovation of PURESCRAP has the ambition to go far beyond industrial state-of-the-art to achieve a higher recycling rate of post-consumer scrap (increased share of low-quality scrap over the total scrap input by at least 40% or more) compared to the usual practice for a specific steel quality, whereas realistic grades are e.g., rail steel R260 (1.0623; EN13674) and engineering steel 42CrMo4 (1.7225; DIN EN10083). This clearly contributes to the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA ) of the Clean Steel Partnership, and to the achievement of the European Green Deal goals regarding circular economy as well as to the reduction of CO2 emissions. The outstanding performance of the proposed PURESCRAP sensor stations will be demonstrated through the implementation at industrial scale at a scrap supplier site.

To achieve the 2050 climate goals, industries must transition to zero-emission and circular processes, crucial for the metallurgical industry facing challenges due to carbon dependence and difficult to abate emissions. Key to this transition is the integration of fluctuating renewable electricity sources, circular processes, and the production of versatile products like methanol. However, to overcome the challenges in e-methanol production, there is a need for technological breakthroughs for competitive renewable electricity and efficient CO2 utilisation. Energy-intensive sectors require low-cost, environmentally friendly CO2 capture systems. The integration of Power-to-Value systems presents a unique opportunity for a seamless transition to circular economies. EMPHATICAL targets residual CO/CO2 containing gases from highly electrified metallurgical industry, namely electrical and submerged arc furnace processes (EAF & SAF), through the energy efficient integration of innovative oxy-blown calcium-looping capture technology, purification, and conversion of CO2 to e-methanol with green H2 as a feedstock. Culminating in a first of a kind TRL7 demonstrator to establish economic viability and sustainability for achieving net zero in electrified metallurgical and methanol production. EMPHATICAL will demonstrate integrated concept at relevant scale for making decisions for the FOAK, taking overall conversion process from TRL5 to demonstration TRL7. The objective is to achieve a 25% reduction of the specific energy consumption and 25% decrease of the production costs. In this project, risks are mitigated from the start; each unit can be implemented as a stand-alone function within a modified state-of-the-art technology chain and thus provide immediate performance and energy efficiency improvements. The project evaluates EMPHATICAL concept integration in two industrial sites. The expected overall CO2 reduction for EMPHATICAL plants is projected to be 41 Mt/year by 2050.

EAF steelmaking is the key technology for decarbonised steelmaking, either in scrap-based plant by modification of existing processes for further decarbonisation, or as new EAF installations in decarbonised integrated steel works to (partly) replace the classical BF-BOF production. At same time the EAF is the most important example for modular and hybrid heating, already now combining electric arc heating with burner technologies. Consequently, it was selected as main focus of GreenHeatEAF for the Call „Modular and hybrid heating technologies in steel production“. GreenHeatEAF develops and demonstrates the most important decarbonisation approaches at EAFs including the use of hydrogen to replace natural gas combustion in existing or re-vamped burners or innovative technologies like CoJet. Furthermore, decarbonisation of EAF steelmaking by solid materials like DRI/HBI and renewable carbon sources like biochar is tackled. Technologies to re-optimise the heating management with maximum heat recovery of off-gas and slag employing new sensor and soft-sensor concepts as well as extended digital twins are developed: as result the extended CFD and flowsheeting models, and monitoring and control tools will prognose the influences of the different decarbonisation measures on EAF and process chain to support upcoming decarbonisation investments and to enable the control of decarbonised hybrid heating with maximum energy efficiency. GreenHeatEAF combines trials in demonstration scale, e.g. in combustion- and EAF-demo plants, with validations in industrial scale and digital optimisations with high synergy. Thus, it completely follows the Horizon Twin Transition and Clean Steel Partnership objectives and the target to progress decarbonisation technologies from TRL 5 to 7. This synergic concept of GreenHeatEAF supports implementation and digitisation to speed up the transition of the European steel industry to highly competitive energy-efficient decarbonised steel productio