2023-05-19 18:59:57
The Gijón pilot plant where the CO2 capture from ArcelorMittal’s steel furnaces will be tested and the generation of hydrogen, the fuel of the future, will start operating this summer. The plant, which has been designed by scientists from the Institute of Carbon Science and Technology (Incar) in Oviedo, already has its main elements installed, including a five meter high reactor.
The test at the ArcelorMittal factory in Gijón is part of the European C4U carbon capture project for steel industries, which is coordinated by University College London and has a budget of 13.8 million euros.
At the pilot plant in Gijón, the CASOH technology for carbon dioxide capture and simultaneous production of hydrogen, developed in the Incar laboratories in Oviedo, will be demonstrated on a semi-industrial scale. Residual gases from ArcelorMittal’s blast furnaces will be subjected to very high temperatures and with the assistance of calcium as a carbon sorbent, a flow rich in hydrogen and nitrogen will be obtained that can be used for industrial purposes. Subsequently, through oxidation and calcination cycles, an efficient regeneration of the carbon sorbent will be achieved, which will result in a current rich in CO2 ready either for its purification and subsequent use, or for its storage, thus avoiding its release and contributing to heating. of the atmosphere.
The semi-industrial scale plant has been located next to the GasLab laboratory of the ArcelorMittal factory in Gijón, on a 34×18 meter plot. The main and auxiliary reactors are already installed and the supply of blast furnace gases to the plant has already been tested through new pipelines. The works of electrical installations and instrumentation are advanced. “However, the delays of the contractors in the mechanical assembly of the different gas lines have prevented the pilot from being completed,” he said. Juan Carlos Abanades, the scientist responsible for the Incar CO2 capture group, in the latest communication on the progress of the project. However, “it is expected to have the first hot test of the CASOH process during the summer of 2023,” Abanades added.
The objective of the Gijón pilot plant is not only to verify if the CO2 capture and H2 production technology works on a semi-industrial scale, but also if its costs are competitive. This last parameter will be key to determining the choice of this technology over others in the transition process towards emission-free steel production, according to sources from the European C4U project.
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“In recent months there has been a flurry of crucial developments for carbon capture and storage and for the decarbonisation of steel in Europe and elsewhere. From the number of projects announced and the variety of policies developed, with the provision of significant government funding, it is clear that the deployment of scalable low-emission technologies such as carbon capture and storage in the steel industry will soon become a reality,” he said. Haroun Mahgereftehmember of University College London and coordinator of the C4U project, in which eight European countries, Canada, China and the United States participate.
The CASOH capture technology, which will be tested at the Gijón steel factory, is not the only one that will be demonstrated within the European C4U project. Displace capture technology will be demonstrated at the Lulea steel plant in Sweden. In addition, within the project there are lines of research on the large-scale integration of technologies or on the transport and storage of CO2.
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