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The CIRMET solution will be validated in an operational environment (TRL7) in an existing process plant (nonferrous sector) while the replicability of the solution will be assessed in three additional energy intensive sectors (steel, cement and water sector).
For this purpose, three new demonstrators will be built up, plus the retrofitting of existing industry process unit. The new demonstrators or modules will be: EFFIMELT furnace, a new concept of flexible and modular process unit for industrial wastes treatment, RECUWASTE heat recovery unit, for flue gas heat recovery and transformation into compressed air to re-used in the same plant, having also the possibility of storing the excess energy and AFF40 (Analytic For Factory 4.0) platform, to improve process plant competitiveness, to increase energy and resource efficiency by controlling and optimizing process units. The retrofitting of an existing process unit, will be done to implement and validate the complete CIRMET solution.
A well-balanced consortium formed by academia, research organization, SMEs and energy intensive industries ensures the whole value chain needed to achieve project objectives and paves the way for future exploitation of the solution. The effective dissemination of project outcomes to the current and next generation of citizen and employees through the development of learning resources with flexible usage to be carried out by education/training experts within the consortium is eventually also an important objective of the consortium.
SISTERS PROJECTS
BAMBOO will move this way. New technologies addressing energy and resource efficiency challenges will be tested and integrated in 4 intensive industries: steel, petrochemical, minerals and pulp and paper. These technologies will be adapted, tested and validated under real production conditions focus on three main innovation pillars: waste heat recovery, electrical flexibility and waste streams valorization. BAMBOO will empower intensive industries to take better decisions to become more competitive in the use of natural resources in a broader context.
bambooproject.eu
The CIRMET project has synergies with DIGISER++ project, funded by the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT), a body of the European Union, under the Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. DIGISER++ is a case study of the waste valorization and energy recuperation in energy-intensive industries, considering the specific needs of a copper smelter and refinery company.
www.digiser.tech
The EU-funded ACHIEF project aims to collaborate in the strategic environment challenge of the European Union of decreasing Green House Gas emissions by 80-90% by 2050. It will propose innovative high-performance materials for Energy Intensive Industries to improve their energy performance by enabling process equipment to perform longer and with a better productivity.
www.achief.eu
The main objective of CORALIS is to create pathways for the decarbonisation of resource and energy-intensive sector value chains through the implementation of viable IS approaches combining new business and management strategies with innovative technology-based enablers. The overall approach of CORALIS will be demonstrated in a total of 3 industrial parks (Lighthouses), each of them supported by an IS facilitator, a neutral actor in charge of guiding the IS initiative and exploiting its full potential. Moreover, 3 additional industrial parks (Followers) will follow the project results to replicate them by implementing additional IS initiatives after the project’s end.
www.coralis-h2020.eu
Tweets by CIRMET_H2020
To achieve the main objective of the project and impacts expected in the SPIRE-03-2018 Energy and resource flexibility in highly energy intensive industries topic, the following specific objectives have been defined.
These objectives and impacts will be verified during the validation process of the CIRMET solution, implemented and demonstrated in process plant (TRL7 - system prototype demonstration in operational environment):
WP1 is devoted to the management and coordination activities and will work in all the aspects related to the coordination of participants, task and workpackage leaders, communication with the EC and control of risks and quality of the work. WP2 is related to the analysis of specifications, requirements and KPIs. It is a transversal WP establishing the general guidelines ensuring the alignment and future integration of the innovation activities performed in WPs 3, 4 and 5 are entirely devoted to technical aspects, those devoted to develop the CIRMET solution of the project. WP3 will design and construct the EFFIMELT furnace, an efficient, flexible and modular metallurgy furnace for the recycling and valorisation of metallic residues coming from energy intensive industries. WP4 will be devoted to the design and construction of the RECUWASTE heat recovery system. It will recover part of the waste heat of the flue gases of the furnace and transform it into compressed air through a continuous variable transmission to cope with a fluctuating demand of compressed air of the plant. WP5 will develop and implement a smart control system in order to increase the energy efficiency of the overall CIRMET concept.
Following the construction of the two demonstrators, EFFIMELT and RECUWASTE, and their integration with the control system, the CIRMET solution will be installed and started up in one of the end-user of the project already identified, where this solution to recycle and valorise industrial metallic wastes in an efficient way will be validated. These activities will be approached in WP6 "validation in operational conditions (TRL7)"
With the results obtained in these demo activities, the replicability and adaptability of the developed technologies to other sectors will be analysed in WP7. A draft project to apply this technology in other Energy Intensive Industries will be prepared.
To ensure the maximum impact of the project, coherent dissemination and education and learning strategies have been approached in the WP8. Finally, the WP9 will be dedicated to the business plan and the exploitation strategies of the main results of the CIRMET project.
EFFIMELT demonstrator will show the feasibility of CIRMET solution applied to resource efficiency through flexible, versatile and modular process unit in industrial environment. In order to increase replicability and cross-sectorial aspects, it will be tested processing wastes containing different amounts of zinc oxide, and in this way the results will be representative enough for different sectors and industries, for example: steelmaking, non-ferrous, black mass-producing recyclers, solid urban waste incinerators.
INNOVATIONS TO BE IMPLEMENTED Effimelt furnace is based on a new concept and innovative metallurgical furnace developed by DIGIMET and TECNALIA, this technology is covered by two family of patents, i.e. WO2016169780 and EP15382205, so it is freedom to operate technology at this project. Wastes are treated in a plasma heated molten metal bath recovering all valuable elements in any of the three resource recovery flows: base metal, inner vitreous slag and high purity flue dust concentrate. EFFIMELT furnace is going to operate with an average productivity of 500 Kg/h, this ratio is proper for treatment of copper flue dust. It is made of plane carbon and stainless steel frame and chamber, with specifically developed isolating materials and refractories inside, in the area which is in contact with the molten metal. This refractories are going to be specifically developed for this application by Tecnalia, improving refractory life by 12% and energy efficiency by 2%. The power unit of the furnace is a plasma torch of 480 kW. The application of plasma torches has a promising future in new furnacers and thermal treatment technologies which main advantages are: High temperature (20.000 ºC or more can be achieved), Kigh intensity, non-ionising radiation and high energy density, directional heat source, thermal gradients can be controlled independently of chemistry, high throughput with compact reactor geometry, high quench rates (>106 K/s) allowing specific gas and solid material compositions to be melted and transformed.
INNOVATIONS TO BE IMPLEMENTED
Effimelt furnace is based on a new concept and innovative metallurgical furnace developed by DIGIMET and TECNALIA, this technology is covered by two family of patents, i.e. WO2016169780 and EP15382205, so it is freedom to operate technology at this project. Wastes are treated in a plasma heated molten metal bath recovering all valuable elements in any of the three resource recovery flows: base metal, inner vitreous slag and high purity flue dust concentrate.
EFFIMELT furnace is going to operate with an average productivity of 500 Kg/h, this ratio is proper for treatment of copper flue dust. It is made of plane carbon and stainless steel frame and chamber, with specifically developed isolating materials and refractories inside, in the area which is in contact with the molten metal. This refractories are going to be specifically developed for this application by Tecnalia, improving refractory life by 12% and energy efficiency by 2%. The power unit of the furnace is a plasma torch of 480 kW. The application of plasma torches has a promising future in new furnacers and thermal treatment technologies which main advantages are: High temperature (20.000 ºC or more can be achieved), Kigh intensity, non-ionising radiation and high energy density, directional heat source, thermal gradients can be controlled independently of chemistry, high throughput with compact reactor geometry, high quench rates (>106 K/s) allowing specific gas and solid material compositions to be melted and transformed.
On the above picture, drawing of EFFIMELT modular plant for treatment of 10.000 t/year of wastes containing metals and its oxides. Source: Digimet.
RECUWASTE demonstrator is for process of heat recovery from low and medium temperature flue gases coming from high energy intensive industrial processes. It is based in the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) technology, that works with the same operational principle than a conventional steam Rankine cycle, with the difference of an organic fluid being used in the expander instead of water. It is composed by a heat exchanger to recover heat from the waste gases, and ORC unit which transforms this heat into mechanical power, a continuous variable transmission (CVT) system which adapts and transfers this mechanical power to the air compressor and finally a mechanical storage system to store the surplus energy.
INNOVATIONS TO BE IMPLEMENTED The main innovation to be implemented in this heat recovery technology to transform heat into compressed air consists in the design and development of a mechanical continuous variable transmission (CVT) system that will permit to match the power supply with the compressed air demand with the possibility of storing the energy in excess in a mechanical device such as a flywheel. This solution will avoid the loss of energy when the compressed air consumption is lower than the amount that is being generated though the transmission system. Moreover, the possibility of storing the excess energy will permit to supply more energy than the generated by the recovery system in the moment when the compressed air consumption is high. Other innovations to be tested at preliminary validation trials at pilot plant scale will be the substitution of current heat exchangers in the evaporator and condenser components of the HRU-5 by more efficient plate heat exchangers, the testing of a magnetic sealing in the expander to avoid refrigerant losses and the substitution of the currently used refrigerant by a less pollutant refrigerant.
The main innovation to be implemented in this heat recovery technology to transform heat into compressed air consists in the design and development of a mechanical continuous variable transmission (CVT) system that will permit to match the power supply with the compressed air demand with the possibility of storing the energy in excess in a mechanical device such as a flywheel. This solution will avoid the loss of energy when the compressed air consumption is lower than the amount that is being generated though the transmission system. Moreover, the possibility of storing the excess energy will permit to supply more energy than the generated by the recovery system in the moment when the compressed air consumption is high.
Other innovations to be tested at preliminary validation trials at pilot plant scale will be the substitution of current heat exchangers in the evaporator and condenser components of the HRU-5 by more efficient plate heat exchangers, the testing of a magnetic sealing in the expander to avoid refrigerant losses and the substitution of the currently used refrigerant by a less pollutant refrigerant.
On the above picture, drawing of RECUWASTE heat exchanger (ORC) based on a turbine/expander working as a conventional steam turbine to transform thermal energy into mechanical energy and finnaly into electric energy through an electric generator. Source: enerbasque.
Soft sensors are predictive models, based on massive amounts of data, which are mainly responsible for online predicytion of some variables that play an indispensable role in quality control of an industrial process. In industrial process control, some product qualities and key variables are difficult to measure online due to technical or economic limitations. Data driven soft sensors provide stable and reliable online estimation of these variables based on historical measurements of easy-to-measure process variables.
The consortium is, for the purpose of the project, well balanced with research centres (2 partners), universities (3 partners) solution integrators (7 partners, all of them SMEs, except DIGIMET) and industrial companies (4 end users).
The consortium partners cover several relevant sectors of the energy intensive industry ecosystem linked to SPIRE PPP, namely nonferrous, steel (represented by SIDENOR), cement (represented by CEMENTI ROSSI) and water sectors (represented by MSI as a service provider of water treatment plants). Thus, the industrial involvement in the project is significant.
We invite you to visit individual above-mentioned sections and to familiarize yourself with the all available materials
You can find all public deliverables here (and download them):
D5.3 CIRMET Monitoring and Control tool, Functional Design Specification (due date: 30/06/2019);
D5.4 Monitoring and Control tool, Implementation (due date: 31/03/2020)
D8.1 Project website (due date: 31/12/2018);
D8.4 Updated Dissemination Plan (due date: 31/03/2021)
You can find short overview of all confidential deliverables submitted to EC
After 4 years of work, the CIRMET Project is near to be completed. Therefore, the CIRMET Partners organised its online Final Workshop on the 2nd of December 2022.
During the event, there were presented the last results in terms of development of the CIRMET solution for Energy Intensive Industries (EII). But not only. The presentations were given also by the invited speakers from other EU-funded projects working in the same area which CIRMET – ACHIEF, BAMBOO and CORALIS – about their project’s solutions for industrial sector. The final point of the event was a discussion with the presenters moderated by Franz Hörzenberger (ArcelorMittal) about applications and impacts of the new solutions for industry.
Go to the link to see the recording of the Final Workshop published in the CIRMET YouTube channel.
Download the Agenda in PDF
Emil Lezak Emil Lezak holds PhD of Chemical Sciences in the field of Nanotechnology (CBMiM PAN in Lodz). He also obtained the title of an engineer in environmental protection at the Lodz University of Technology. He has good knowledge of R&D processes and products (over 8 years in R&D departments - Poland / Spain). Since 2012, he has participated in EU initiatives such as: FP7; H2020; GreenDealEU; HorizonEU. He participated in 15 projects incl. Industry (Manufacturing), Energy, Environment, etc.; 150+ project applications (Manufacturing, Energy, Environment, etc.).
Ludo Diels Ludo Diels, Dr. in chemistry & biotechnology, is professor emeritus at Antwerp University, former scientific advisor sustainable chemistry at VITO. He is the chair of the Advisory & Program Group of A.SPIRE. In that function he is chairing the preparation of research and development strategy and programs for the whole process industry in Europe towards climate neutrality, circularity and competitiveness under the Processes4Planet program. He is the chair of the advisory group of the shared research center Biorizon on bio-based aromatics, and as such also strongly involved in the biobased economy in Europe.
Franz Hörzenberger Franz Hörzenberger has 30 years experience in various domains in steel R&D within ArcelorMittal, nowadays heading EU affairs for Global R&D ArcelorMittal.
Mikel Merchán Mikel Merchán is a Materials Engineer by the Engineering School of the University of Navarra since 2006. He has worked at Tecnalia for 16 years in different research fields, among them the valorisation of metallic wastes and the energy recovery in industries. He has participated in different private and funded projects, among them CIRMET, a European funded project in which he has been the technical coordinator for the last four years.
Jorge Arroyo Jorge Arroyo is a Mechanical Engineer with a Ph.D in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. He developed their thesis in the field of the combustion of hydrogen. He has also experience in the automotive sector and currently works as Technology Project Manager in CIRCE Research Centre, within the Digital Industry team, where he coordinates the H2020 BAMBOO project.
Marie Cabaret Marie Cabaret is a materials science Engineer who works at CEA (Grenoble, France). With a good experience of project management in different fields: risks in vaccines industries, machine design and scientific projects, she is now the coordinator of H2020 ACHIEF project. Aware of the global climatic challenge, she is convinced that thanks to the scientific results of ACHIEF, it will contribute to the ambitious targets of the European Green Deal.
Marcelino Gallego Marcelino Gallego is a Mechanical industrial engineer and IPMA C in Project Management. He was a project manager at Vestas (7 years) and Manufacturing project leader at Atlas Copco (7 years). Currently, at Circe he is a Project Manager on the Department of Public Programs since January 2021.
Within the project, we developed the learning path for those who wish a complete overview of the CIRMET project, aiming to design, develop, and validate an innovative solution to provide energy and resource flexibility to Energy Intensive Industries (Ells).
Go to the Online Course
The EU Circular Economy: why metals matter!
We need policy-makers' help to prevent metals from being landfilled, incinerated, or exported outside of Europe.
Source: https://eurometaux.eu/
"Recycling of metals, means returining the various metals contained end-of-live materials, or industrial waste into the form that are suitable for reuse" by Dirk Vandenberghe, the CEO of METALLO BELGIUM N.V. (formely Metallo Chimique N.V.).
Source: https://copperalliance.eu/
As member of the Special Interest Group (SIG) of CIRMET project, you will have direct access to the public deliverables and will receive information about the relevant news, events and results of the project.
Newsletter (March 2021): https://mailchi.mp/555969b5e613/cirmet-newsletter-march-2021
Management Support Team
Technical - Mikel Merchan
mikel.merchan@tecnalia.com
Financial and legal - Guadalupe Lobo
guadelupe.lobo@tecnalia.com
Administrative - Ana Cárcamo
ana.carcamo@tecnalia.com
Demo Coordinator
David Eguizabal
deguizabal@digimet.es
Exploitation Manager
Educational coordinator
Giovanna Sauve
giovanna.sauve@kuleuven.be
Dissemination Coordinator
Emil Lezak
emil.lezak@iznab.pl
