PROJECT DESCRIPTION
BACKGROUND
Bright annealing is a process used to produce tubes in the steel industry. It is performed in a vacuum or controlled atmosphere containing inert gases, which reduces surface oxidation to a minimum. This results in a brighter surface, a much thinner oxide layer, less risk of fracture and no internal stresses. It also reduces the risk of corrosion, cracking and distortion.
Bright annealing is carried out in a furnace with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and at temperatures ranging from 1 040°C to 1 100°C, followed by rapid cooling. In the case of fully continuous plants, this hydrogen flow is fully volatile and dispersed into the air after use. There is currently no technology available on the market to recover this waste hydrogen to be reused as fuel in the furnace.
OBJECTIVES
LIFE H2Reuse aims to mitigate the impacts of the bright annealing process, by developing 2 innovative technical solutions to recover and reuse waste hydrogen from the industrial process. They will be developed and tested in real-life environments to demonstrate their technical, environmental and socio-economic benefits. The resulting technologies will be commercialised for roller hearth furnace plants that also use an atmospheric gas with a high hydrogen content (up to 100%). This will reduce the carbon footprint of the production line, lower operational costs and avoid wasting resources.
The LIFE H2Reuse project’s objectives are to:
- reduce CO2 emissions in the steel industry
- recover H2 to avoid waste of resources
- reduce energy consumption used in the production of steel tubes
- test the new industrial process(es)
- assess the economic savings and business opportunities
RESULTS
The project’s expected results are to:
- design and manufacture six H2 burners
- design and produce H2 capture technology (including monitoring sensors) to recover around 32 tonnes/year of H2
- install the entire LIFE H2Reuse system in the DMV Italia bright annealing process facility
- reduce energy consumption by around 0.87 GWh/year
- reduce CO2 emissions by around 372 tonnes/year of CO2 eq.
- test and validate the system over the long term (6 months) for performance, production stability and safety
- develop a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and a Socio-Economic Assessment (SEA) for the LIFE H2Reuse system
