Hydrogen can be used as reducing gas for ENERGIRON plants without any major modification to the original process scheme.
Indeed, hydrogen has always been the main reducing agent for this technology: ENERGIRON plants typically work with an H2/CO ratio in the range of 3:5, and as such have been designed to work with high hydrogen content since the outset. ENERGIRON is already making the most of this promising energy vector, further improving the efficiency of the reducing process. In fact, faster reducing kinetics are achieved by using hydrogen as the primary agent - about five times faster than those based on carbon. This solution also allows to minimize CO2 emissions: while the by-product of iron ore reduction by carbon is CO2, the by-product of reduction by hydrogen is simply water.
Thanks to our ENERGIRON technology, it is now possible to produce high-grade steel in a cost-effective and sustainable way.