Resumen
As one carbon neutral source, biocoal will play an important role to facilitate the transition of
the European steel industry towards processes decarbonization. The BioReSteel project focuses on
exploring, developing and utilizing hydrochar (one type of biocoal), derived from various locally
available biomass residues via the hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) process, in the electric arc
furnace (EAF) process. HTC unblocks to valorization of residual wet biomass feedstocks,
which makes the hydrochar more economically competitive. Given the abundant biomass residues
available in Europe, the hydrochar produced from only a few percent (< 2%) is sufficient to supply
all operating EAF steel plants in Europe. By estimation, around 840,000 t fossil coal can be
substituted by hydrochar at today's steel production level from EAF process, leading to a reduced
fossil C02 emission of about 2.5 Mt per year. As additional sustainability aspects, phosphorus
from residual biomass will be returned into circular economy saving resources of a
critical raw material. In addition, heavy metals will be collected for decontamination of products
and environment. BioReSteel will be conducted by a strong international team with required
competences and complementary knowledges. The project will cover the whole value chain from biomass
feedstocks, hydrochar production by an industrial HTC plant, up to its use in the EAF steelmaking
of green steel. The project will consider all technical, economic and sustainability aspects. The
BioReSteel concept will be proved by an experimental study
trials will be performed at three EAF plants to test hydrochar injection, hydrochar top charging and bio-oxides agglomerates in order to prove the concept's
flexibility and generality.
