TORrefying wood with Ethanol as a Renewable Output: large-scale demonstration

Project Information

Torero

Grant agreement ID: 745810

DOI

10.3030/745810

Project closed

EC signature date 7 April 2017

Start date 1 May 2017

End date 31 December 2024

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 18 090 177,50

EU contribution

€ 11 472 915,63

Coordinated by

ARCELORMITTAL BELGIUM NV
Belgium

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - Torero (TORrefying wood with Ethanol as a Renewable Output: large-scale demonstration)

Reporting period: 2018-11-01 to 2020-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Torero will demonstrate a cost-, resource-, and energy-efficient technology concept for producing bioethanol from a wood waste feedstock, fully integrated in a large-scale, industrially functional steel mill:
• Wood waste is converted to biocoal by torrefaction [in scope of Torero project]
• Biocoal replaces fossil powdered coal in a steel mill blast furnace [in scope of Torero project]
• Carbon monoxide in blast furnace exhaust fumes is microbially fermented to bioethanol [in scope of sister project Steelanol]
• Material and energy loops of the process are closed to a very large degree [

Every steel mill that implements this concept will be able to produce 50000 tons of biocoal [Torero] as feedstock for 80 million litres of bioethanol per year [Steelanol]. This project creates a value chain for wood waste, which currently has no attractive applications. The technology concept is open ended: in the future, stakeholders may replicate the concept with other feedstocks and for producing other types of fuels. The business case the Torero project will produce a competitive input feedstock [Torero] for the process for non-food feedstock bioethanol production [Steelanol]. Compared with the current first generation production based cellulosic bio-ethanol solution the Torero innovation the OPEX of Torero is 1/3 lower with a same CAPEX. This will allow scale up of torrefaction technology when successfully demonstrated. Most importantly, together with sister project Steelanol, Torero will be the only H2020 project to demonstrate a biofuel production process that is integrated in an existing, fully functional large-scale industrial facility. All other H2020 solutions will need to be newly built if they ever reach full industrial scale. Torero is add-on technology that can be used to upgrade existing facilities of the steel sector, an industry that is actively scouting for technological solutions to make its production processes more sustainable. The consortium consist of full value chain, industry ArcelorMittal and Van Gansewinkel, two expert research organisations Joanneum Research and Chalmers Technical University and torrefaction technology supplier TorrCoal. Targetted GHG reductions for the Torero projects are 150 000 tons of CO2/year via replacement of fossil coal with bio-coal in the steelmaking process.

The Torero concept entails the following steps:
- collection of waste wood
- processing of waste wood to specifications required for torrefaction (removing pollutants and shredding)
- drying and seeving of waste wood shreds
- torrefaction of waste wood shres to bio-coal
- grinding and transport to the blast furnace
- injection of waste wood into the blast furnace to replace fossil coal

The construction of the Torero plant will start in January 2021 and completed in Janueary 2021. Production will start in July 2022, with estimation of full capacity iin November 2022.

As indicated above the Torero project is related to the Horizon 2020 project Steelanol (656437)

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project has succesfully started and the consortium has intensively collaborated to achieve the objectives.

The conceptual design and engineering of the Torero plant has been completed (90% of the detailed engineering) and the future location determined. After evaluating a number of alternatives the initial idea of integration with the sinter plant was retained.

The currently bio-coal production with the demonstration reactor will be within a range of 30 000 ton/year to 50 000 ton/year . The Torero team estimates that the most likely production at start-up of one reactor will be 37 500 ton/year. The ambition of the project team remains a yearly production of 50 000 tons/year, but that is estimated to be the maximum achievable after optimising the production process conditions.

A project mass & heat balance model has been made. This model has been used to simulated various torrefaction working points. The heat and mass balance calculation models of the Torero process were developed considering an approach in which data from pilot plant tests with B-type biomass wood were utilized to fit a reaction scheme model, developed in Fortran code in the Aspen simulation tool.

For the environmental assessment the methodology of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) isused. Based on the integrated process design for the TORERO system the LCA methodology is adapted to the specific challenges and framework conditions of the project (e.g. key environmental parameters and aspects). The different sectors (e.g. steel industry, wood waste chain and the recycling, waste industry) and the circular economy approach will be included and linked to each other in the assessment. Within the environmental assessment existing modelling tools and databases will be used. The TORERO system will be compared to a conventional reference system providing the same products and services.

200t of unground bio-coal was ground in the AMG-grinding lines and then used on both blast furnaces at a ratio of 9% bio-carbon and 91% standard PCI mixture. There were no significant problems during the test. The bio-coal was produced by Torr-Coal at specification of ArcelorMittal. The biocoal pellets were transported to ArcelorMittal Gent plant, grinded and mixed with PCI to be injected in both blast furnaces BF A and BF B.

Dissemination activies have been multiple with the development of a logo, website, folder and newsletter. The project work has been presented at various conferences and been published in papers.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The most important impact will be materialized once the torrefaction plant will be in operation.
The yearly production of biocoal by the torrefaction reactor will differ from the initial concept at the start-up of the reactor, due to changes in the operating conditions of the reactor and learnings taken from the engineering and testing done in the first period of project. Instead of the initial targeted annual production of 50 000 ton biocoal, nominally 37 000 ton is targeted at the start-up of the reactor. During the optimisation runs the ambition of the project remains to reach the initially targeted annual production of biocoal of 50 000 tons.
The capacity of the ethanol plant (Steelanol) remains 64 000 tons/year of ethanol, thus aligned with the ambition of 50 000 ton/year of biocoal.
When this ambition is reached the impact of the project remains.
- 80 million liter of biofuel to displace fossil fuel.( 150 000 tons CO2 reduction per year)
- 50 000 tons of biocoal replacing fossil PCI (100 000 tons CO2 reduction per year)
Estimated 20 additional jobs for the scope of this demonstration project.

Torero process