About the project
The BioH2Steel project aims to decarbonize steel production by replacing fossil natural gas in the direct reduced iron (DRI) process with hydrogen rich gas made from torrefied biomass and waste. The project will demonstrate, at pilot scale, an integrated system that converts low grade bio-residues (e.g. woody waste, sewage sludge) into H2 rich syngas via an oxy sorption-enhanced gasification (oxy SEG) process, cleans and conditions the resulting H2 rich-syngas, and uses it in a DRI furnace. It will also use captured CO2 to produce solid biogenic carbon and explore reuse of residues (e.g. CaO, vitrified ash, phosphorus) in a circular economy. In parallel, advanced process models and life cycle and techno economic analyses will guide optimization and future industrial deployment.
Steelmaking is highly CO2 intensive and current DRI routes mostly use fossil methane or expensive green hydrogen from electrolysis. Existing biomass gasifiers are not designed for low grade wastes, and their gas is usually not directly integrated with the DRI process or CO2 utilization. BioH2Steel goes beyond this by demonstrating a first integration of biomass/waste oxy Sorption Enhanced Gasification with a DRI furnace at TRL 6/7, using oxygen instead of air to generate H2 rich syngas and a concentrated CO2 stream. It advances gas cleaning by tar and impurity removal with plasma reforming and electro scrubbers and uses the concentrated CO2 stream for cracking CO2 into solid carbon. The project combines new DRI kinetic modelling, large scale process simulation and pilot scale tests (at 200 kW plus a 1 MW benchmark plant) to handle impure feedstocks reliably, recover waste heat, and to pioneer circular use of spent sorbents (CaO) and vitrified ashes as industrial materials.
The project expects to prove that H2 rich syngas from waste biomass can run a DRI process with an energy demand comparable to today’s best natural gas based DRI, but with much lower net CO2 emissions. It will deliver pilot scale demonstrations, a DRI simulation tool, a prototype CO2 cracking reactor, optimized gas cleaning technologies and concepts for reusing ash, CaO sorbents and solid carbon in steel making and construction. These results should enable future plants to produce tens of thousands of tons of low carbon sponge iron per year. By using widely available residues and wastes, the concept could in the long term support a large share of European iron production and cut emissions by millions of tons of CO2 annually. Additional benefits include new markets for bio waste, recyclable by products for steel making and construction, and new green tech jobs and skills in Europe.
