Kanthal and Danieli announce strategic partnership to develop and industrialize full-scale electric process gas heaters for DRI plants

Kanthal, a world leader in electric industrial heating technology, and Danieli, a major global supplier of turnkey plants and equipment for the iron- and steel industry, have announced a strategic partnership to jointly scale up Kanthal’s demonstrated electric process gas direct-heating solution, Prothal® DH, to full industrial scale. By installing Prothal® DH in Energiron hydrogen-ready DRI plants, fully green DRI production will be achieved. Furthermore, the introduction of Prothal® DH technology in blast furnace operation will reduce CO2 emissions in ironmaking.

Global megatrends are driving the demand for decarbonization of the industry and as one of the world’s largest emitters of CO2, representing 7% of global total emissions, the iron- and steel industry is in the spotlight. Several projects, mainly in Europe, are developing solutions such as hydrogen-based direct reduced iron processes (H2-DRI) with the aim to remove CO2 emissions, enabling production of green steel.

Under the name Prothal® DH, Kanthal has developed a direct heated electric solution for high-temperature process gas heating – one important step towards enabling zero-emission DRI plants. The solution has been tested and verified in pilot scale and with this partnership, Kanthal and Danieli aims to further develop this technology to full scale, which means up to 100’s of megawatts. The ambition is to have a solution ready for commercialization in 2027.

“We are now taking another step towards commercializing large-scale, electric gas heaters, which will be key to substantially reduce or even eliminate CO2 emissions. We’re excited to join forces with one of the world’s foremost experts in DRI technology to make the steel industry’s green shift possible,” says Simon Lile, President Business Unit Heating Systems at Kanthal.

The heating solution will be developed for hydrogen, natural gas and combinations, thereby enabling retrofitting of existing DRI plants.

“Even for natural gas based DRI plants, you will achieve more than 30% reduction of CO2 emissions when you electrify the heating system. This partnership allows the unlocking of huge potential for a new technology that will drive Energiron DR plants carbon footprint furtherly ahead in the race of green steel,” says Marco Lapasin, Vice President Danieli Engineering Centro Metallics.

Energiron is DRI technology jointly developed by Tenova and Danieli.

The partnership was announced at the Future Steel Forum event in Stockholm, Sweden. Speaker Dilip Chandrasekaran, Global Business Development Manager at Kanthal, has led the development of this unique direct electric heater. “After years of research, designing and testing, the solution is now ready to be verified on industrial scale. We build this on already proven technology but on a scale that has never been done before. If successful, this has the potential to revolutionize the steel industry,” he says.