Assessment of Biochar Production and Integration into HIsarna Ironmaking

12 May 2026, 15:40
20m
Parini room

Parini room

Oral presentation (paper for Ironmaking & Steelmaking special issue) EEC 4.A Carbon footprint reduction strategies. Renewable gases and CO2 mitigation in steel industry I

Speaker

Nirmal Madhavan (TU Delft)

Description

HIsarna ironmaking is a breakthrough smelting reduction technology with the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions by about 50% when operated with coal. However, further decarbonisation of the process requires replacing fossil carbon with carbon neutral alternatives like biochar. This study evaluates biochar production integration to the HIsarna pro-cess operations from the perspective of raw material consumption, unit wise energy requirements, and by-product utili-sation using a flowsheet modelling approach. The model demonstrates a strong thermal synergy between the ironmak-ing and pyrolysis processes, with HIsarna off-gas heat recovery and recycled pyrogas collectively satisfying the thermal demand of continuous slow pyrolysis process. The economic evaluation shows that the integrated system is profitable and the profitability structurally governed by co-product markets particularly CO₂ credits and bio-oil sales rather than biochar value itself.

Speaker Company/University TU Delft
Speaker Country Netherlands

Author

Co-authors

Prof. Neslihan Dogan (Delft University of Technology) Mr Koen Meijer (Project Coordinator R&D Ironmaking) Prof. Yongxiang Yang (Delft University of Technology)

Presentation materials

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