The adoption of hydrogen metallurgy in the climate-neutral production of steel

The HELIOS Doctoral Network will train 10 motivated and talented Doctoral Candidates (DCs) in breakthrough technologies for the hydrogen-based production of green steel, including both carbon steel and stainless steel.

These DCs will be equipped with the necessary science capital and diverse transferable skills to pursue their careers in Europe and become the experts that our society needs to achieve the climate-neutral production of steel by 2050.

The intersectoral training programme is dedicated to the technical and economic challenges and innovative developments associated with the transition to hydrogen-based green-steel production.

The combination of state-of-the-art doctoral research projects, intersectoral secondments and supervision by leading companies (Tata Steel, SSAB Europe Oy, Aperam Stainless Europe, Heraeus Electro-Nite International and LUXMET), universities (KU Leuven, TU Delft, University of OULU, MU Leoben) and competence centres (K1-MET) will be the foundations of HELIOS’s success.

HELIOS targets in 3 interconnected scientific work packages to (1) engineer processes and develop models to leverage the hydrogen-based steel production route to the same state-of-the-art level as the BF-BOF route for carbon steel; (2) develop first-of-a-kind hydrogen-plasma smelting reduction processes for stainless steel production; (3) design and evaluate innovative hydrogen and/or hydrogen plasma-based processes to recover and separate metals from stainless steel residues; and (4) develop measuring and analysis tools and models supporting the application of hydrogen-based processes for steel production.