📋 Tender Overview
Reference: LIFE23-CCM-IT-LIFE-H2Reuse/101156487
Acronym: LIFE23-CCM-IT-LIFE H2Reuse
Start Date: 01/07/2024
End Date: 31/12/2026
Total Eligible Budget: 3,370,350 €
EU Contribution: 2,022,210 €
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.
