The impacts resulting from the HEPHAESTUS project are based on certain foundational assumptions:
abundant and easily accessible availability of steel and mineral wastes for project partners. Project partners such as AST and LARCO, claim to have established contacts with steel manufacturers and the mining industry, ensuring access to these waste streams for trials and future business endeavours.
being in competition with procedures that do not yield favourable economic returns. For instance, the Waelz process is only economical when Zinc Oxide (ZnO) concentrations are higher than 30% because it is known to leave behind a waste volume equivalent to the original dust processed.
capability of the 1.5 MVA and 5 MVA pilot plants located in Greece and Italy, respectively. With estimated outputs of 8.6 kilotons of metal alloy, up to 10.6 kilotons of mineral wool, and up to 560 tons of zinc, these capacities translate into worldwide conversion capacities of 4 and 16 kilotons annually.
20% more mineral wastes than dusts formed from steel. It is said that the amount of mineral dust produced in Europe is greater than that produced by the manufacturing of electric steel, thus there is a constant supply of raw materials at low cost. Depending on the stoichiometric composition and slag performance requirements, this mineral waste stream, which has a variety of compositions (marble, dolomite, and silica), can be utilized in the CleanTech furnace. The project's requirements can be met by cooperation with LARCO and other mining sources, made possible by a multiplier such as ADMIRIS. The metallurgical plant of LARCO, which produces a substantial amount of dust containing nickel as a byproduct, serves as an example of how such waste streams can be used in the project to generate both a business opportunity and addressing environmental concerns.
The aforementioned assumptions will be carefully examined and incorporated into the Business Plan which will be elaborate in T7.2.
Finally, the activities connected to the construction of the demonstrators will start in M18 for the Greek one and in M20 for the Italian one. Therefore, when they will enter in operation and experimental data will be available, the impacts of the HEPHAESTUS integrated process within the steel making and the mining tailing industry, will be verified against the initial provision reported in the DoA.
