Research database

The most overwhelming challenge the EU steel industry has faced in history is to decarbonize production while staying competitive. At the same time, metallurgical gases, e.g., from blast furnaces or converters, are combusted in power plants with very low efficiency and gaseous emissions. H2loop's main objective is to demonstrate the ground-breaking chemical looping process "CLH" for on-site hydrogen production from metallurgical gases. CLH is patented, emission-free, highly energy- and cost-efficient, flexible and modular. In addition to high-purity hydrogen, CLH produces a high-temperature N2 and a CO2-N2 stream separately. A successfully validated CLH pilot plant for landfill gas valorization will be improved and constructed to process metallurgical gases directly connected to the blast furnace gas duct of the steelworks in Taranto. A CLH demonstrator producing 1300 Nm³ H2/day will be entirely controlled and monitored 24/7 by a closed-loop control based on a 3D transient CFD model and the latest low-power edge AI technology. The scale-up will be enabled by a world-first "metamaterial" acting as oxygen carriers inside the CLH reactor (with a patent pending). This plant will demonstrate the CLH process on-site at Taranto for at least one year. In the meantime, the pilot plant will validate the use of other metallurgical gases. The H2loop project provides a perfect basis for the scale-up to industrial scale, the efficient integration of the CLH products into steelworks gas and energy flows, LCA and a complete business plan enabling commercialisation in the steel industry by 2030. Assuming a market share of 60% offers a vast market potential in the EU 2035-2040 to produce 160,000 t hydrogen/a, corresponding to 30% of the estimated demand for EU ironmaking and a turnover of more than 600 Mio. €/a. In conclusion, H2loop is perfectly in line with the central Green Deal target of transforming the EU into a modern, resource-efficient, and competitive economy.