Meeting of the Use In Industry Vertical (19 September).

The second meeting of the Use in Industry Vertical, led by Sener and Sarralle, was held on Tuesday, 19 September, at the Tecnalia facilities in Irun. The event brought together 30 people to analyse the main challenges involved in progressing towards the decarbonisation of the industrial sector.

The session began with a brief presentation of Tecnalia's H2 industrial capabilities, after which Sener updated those present on the progress of the Vertical and provided them with an overview of the hydrogen industry from a regulatory point of view.

Sarralle then presented the first steel mill ladle preheater capable of operating with 100% green hydrogen as fuel. Sarralle, in collaboration with Nippon Gases, has equipped ArcelorMittal Sestao with technology capable of using green hydrogen in the steelmaking process. This milestone, together with other groundbreaking innovations and technologies, will enable ArcelorMittal Sestao to take an important step forward towards meeting the challenge it has set itself of being the first steel mill with zero carbon emissions for its entire process by 2025.

GHI reported on the progress of the H2Hornos project, in which it is collaborating with Aludium, Befesa, Nippon Gases España, Sidenor and Tubacex to progressively decarbonise the industrial furnaces used in the steelmaking and smelting sectors, though this objective also stretches to the forging and heat treatment sectors. The end goal is to use only green hydrogen as fuel in these types of furnaces.

Finally, Tecnalia presented the HyInHeat project: hydrogen technologies for the decarbonisation of industrial heating processes, an EU-funded project that has set itself the objective of demonstrating the use of hydrogen as a fuel in high-temperature processes in the steel and aluminium industry. The substitution of fossil fuels for green hydrogen has considerable potential in terms of reducing CO2 emissions from industrial processes, especially in energy-intensive melting and heat treatment processes.

After the session, those present were invited to visit the prototype of the Sarralle Lamination Reheating Furnace, currently housed at the Tecnalia facilities, where hydrogen combustion tests and refractory and metallurgical tests are being conducted with a view to deploying the furnace for industrial use at the end of the testing phase.