Periodic Reporting for period 3 - ReStoRe (Integrated Refractory and Steel Recovery)
Période du rapport: 2021-03-01 au 2022-02-28
To date, no other technology exists in the steel industry that achieves recycling rates higher than 50%, can be performed in situ and enables the use of the vast majority of treated waste within the same production cycle. These assets would significantly reduce economic and environmental costs of steel production.
Deref S.p.a. has a solid and long-lasting experience in the steel sector, and even more in steel refractory demolition, industrial waste management and metallurgical additives production. It developed a proper solution, tested it industrially at an Electric Arc Furnace plant for stainless steel production, and achieved an over 90% recycling rate with 80% reuse in the same steel shop and very high cost savings. It saw great potential to capitalise on these huge achievements by focusing on the entire steel production market, comprising over 24 relevantly sized steel mills in EU and many more worldwide.
Hereto, Deref aimed to optimise and adapt its patented and proven technology to all types of steel production cycles and steel grades and validate results within large-scale trials and demonstrations, to obtain confirmation on the suitability of the treatment cycles in different use cases and to provide for evidence to the market. It also wanted to standardise protocols and designs, and obtain an ETV certification. Lastly, it needed to broaden market awareness on its ReStoRe technology and to update its commercialisation plan.
Furthermore, to optimize ReStoRe technology to integral cycle steel production, the agglomeration of mineral additives and utilisation in Blast Furnace has been optimized and tested.
A ReStoRe recycling plant was built in May 2019 for an integral steel cycle to develop, trial and industrialise the recovery technology for carbon steel production processes, expanding the range of recyclables to materials originating from blast furnace routes. Refractory selection methodologies and technology were improved, reaching to date a 74% recycling rate.
ReStoRe technologies were applied, on-site and off-site, to the main steel plant configurations: carbon steel production with Blast Furnace (BF) route, carbon steel production with Electrical Arc Furnace (EAC) route, and stainless steel production with EAF route.
Results confirmed the technical feasibility for each of them, and showed that the use of ReStoRe offers numerous benefits, both environmental and economic: reduced consumption of primary raw materials (e.g. lime, dolo-lime), metal recovery, valorisation in refractory production, reduced landfill and significant savings of CO2 emissions. The overall recycling rate achieved for carbon steel production with BF route resulted 74% and for stainless steel production with EAF route 92%. For carbon steel production with EAF route treated materials represented 80% of total exhausted refractory of the steel shop, of which 95% could be recycled.
To standardize ReStoRe technology to facilitate a quick market penetration, an ICT program was developed to determine quantity and qualities of the materials produced by ReStoRe treatment, starting from the characteristics of the steel production process and refractory used in each interested steel mill.
Deref also realised flow sheet (P&I) designs and general layouts for five case studies, which represent an exploitable panel of configurations representative for the variety of steel manufacturing processes worldwide. To cover the main potential configurations 10 different mechanical modules were defined and realized in terms of engineering design.
Deref prioritised in its communication strategy steel-making industry players to raise awareness on ReStoRe technology and interest in the project’s demonstrations. 2 Stands were set up, at METEC 2019 and at 10th ECCC 2021, showcasing ReStoRe technology. 4 Presentations on ReStoRe were given at important conferences (i.e. ESTAD 2021, Mineral Recycling Forum 2022) and one at a professional training course of the Italian Metallurgical Association. On 7 other fairs and conferences Deref exchanged knowledge and built relations, deepened in dedicated meetings with 15 steel producers. An article was published in Refractories Worldforum and a popular one in the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. An interview on the ETV programme was also published. To support all this, Deref released a video on the technology on YouTube, created a page dedicated to ReStoRe technology on its website, prepared posters and a brochure, and opened a LinkedIn page.
As far as exploitation concerns: the commercialization plan was updated at project end based on a market study. Patents were rewarded in India, Iran, Russia and South Africa and trademark registered in EU, Russia, Iran and UK.
ReStoRe underwent a EU Environmental Technology Verification (ETV) on its achievements concerning recycling, cost saving, reduction of CO2 emissions and energy consumption, and recognized as verified technology in October 2021.
Lastly, Deref positively assessed its compliance with the H2020 'ethics requirements', concerning in particular environmental impacts and health and safety issues. Deref has a strong attention for such issues and had all authorisations and certifications timely in place.