INITIATE presented at the METEC & 6th ESTAD conference in Germany

Yesterday, Nicola Zecca from our project partner Politecnico di Milano participated as a speaker in the session “Transformation of routes: Modelling and simulation of transformation” at the METEC & 6th ESTAD (European Steel Technology and Application Days) in Düsseldorf, Germany.

Nicola’s presentation showed some of the results of the INITIATE’s public Deliverable 5.5 titled “Opportunities for other Industrial symbiotic systems”. The presentation focused on the techno-economic assessment of different steel production routes, two of them integrating the SEWGS technology in their plant layout.

The different plants are compared through environmental and economic KPIs. The DRI/EAF+SEWGS plant shows the lowest specific CO2 emissions and the lowest cost of CO2 avoided, equal to 100 €/tCO2 for the renewable energy scenario. An alternative route to the DRI/EAF, adopting an open slag bath furnace and a basic oxygen furnace was also presented. Nicola highlighted how this route gives the possibility to use low-grade pellets in the shaft furnace solving the issue of the lack of high-quality pellets.

This year’s conference looks at the transformation of the European steel industry towards hydrogen-based, CO2-neutral steel production. In particular, the event’s focus is on the process of direct reduction of iron ores with hydrogen and the latest developments in the smelting of direct reduced iron to steel as a prerequisite to producing green steel.