Engineering solutions provider Tenova is collaborating with global engineering firm RINA on the Hydra project, supported by the European Commission.
The €88M initiative – backed by the European Commission’s NextGenerationEU and the Italian Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy – seeks to enable fully hydrogen-powered steel production, readily available for experimental purposes by all steel manufacturers. The results will serve to direct future sustainability-oriented steel production investments.
Tenova, known for its green technologies that aid in the steel sector’s decarbonization, is tasked with providing a 30m tall Direct Reduction Iron ore (DRI) tower. The tower will employ hydrogen as a reducing agent and an Electric Arc Furnace (EAF). Utilizing the ENERGIRON Direct Reduction technology – jointly developed by Tenova and Danieli and paired with Tenova’s EAF – it will be capable of producing up to seven tons hourly by 2025.
The pilot mini mill resulting from this alliance will enable steelmakers throughout Europe to experiment with a range of different combinations. The DRI plant is capable of using varying percentages of natural gases and hydrogen, processing a broad spectrum of iron ores for testing in Tenova’s EAF. Further options include waste materials or plastics infusion into the EAF steel bath as a carbon substitute.
