PROJECT TIMELINE:
1 October 2024 – 31 March 2028
Consortium: 20 partners from 7 countries
Grand agreement ID: 101150482
Find more: https://www.k1-met.com/en/non_comet/safe_h_dri
Safe H‑DRI
Recycling scrap alone cannot meet the growing steel demand, especially for high-tech grades with strict quality requirements. Primary steel production will therefore remain essential — but it must decarbonise. One promising pathway is the increased use of Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) as feedstock for Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF). By combining DRI with scrap, impurities can be diluted and steel quality maintained.
The future of decarbonised steelmaking lies in producing hydrogen-based DRI (H‑DRI), which replaces natural gas with hydrogen (and potentially ammonia as a hydrogen carrier) in the direct reduction process. While this enables a significant reduction in CO₂ emissions, it also introduces new challenges. Most available iron ores are of insufficient quality for DRI production, and the use of low-grade ores or recycled fines can affect product properties, metallisation, and downstream process performance.
Beyond production, safety and logistics are critical issues. H‑DRI is highly reactive: it can reoxidise, self-heat, and react with humidity or seawater, releasing hydrogen and creating explosion risks. Incidents in the past have shown the severity of such hazards, including the loss of entire freight ships. With international trade of H‑DRI expected to grow, ensuring safe storage, transport, and handling is vital.
Objectives of Safe H‑DRI
The project investigates both technical feasibility and safety aspects of H‑DRI, focusing on:
- Developing safe logistic concepts for loading, transport, unloading, and storage.
- Expanding raw material use by integrating low-grade ores and recycled materials.
- Studying reoxidation behaviour under realistic storage and transport conditions (humidity, seawater, elevated temperature).
- Analysing crack and fines formation during handling and exploring reuse options.
- Correlating H‑DRI quality parameters (metallisation, gangue content, particle size) with risks and hazards.
- Researching passivation methods to prevent reoxidation, self-heating, and explosion risks, while assessing their impact on product quality.
By addressing these issues, Safe H‑DRI supports the EU’s Green Deal and RFCS objectives. The project contributes to the development of clean steel breakthrough technologies, updated safety guidelines, and sustainable logistics for the large-scale introduction of H‑DRI into a competitive and resource-efficient European economy.
The project has received funding from the European Union’s RFCS Call for proposal 2023, under Grant Agreement 101150482