Consortium

THERMAX is a fully interdisciplinary project. The consortium is well balanced among technology providers, research and innovation centres, and end users. To achieve the dual goals of assessing and validating the integration of advanced thermal management technologies, such as thermal buffers and TEG panels, into steelmaking processes, and the heat valorisation from waste sources like slag and slabs, the consortium partners works closely together, bringing diverse perspectives and strategies to the table. This approach will encompass the use of advanced equipment, innovative technologies, business optimization processes, and validation methodologies. The consortium leverages complementary technical and scientific skills, working in synergy to ensure a successful project outcome:

• Engineering: THERMAX combines mechanical, thermal, and process engineering disciplines to define optimal working conditions for heat recovery systems, including ORC and TEG integrations. These efforts are essential for setting up and monitoring validation tests in real industrial settings.

• Scientific: laboratory tests and advanced measurement techniques will be employed to characterize the performance of thermal buffers and TEG systems, ensuring their suitability for use in fluctuating thermal environments typical of steelmaking.

• Modelling: smart and efficient validation tests are supported by preliminary modelling phases, which help identify the optimal range of operating conditions. These models are crucial in guiding the design and operational adjustments of the heat recovery systems in the use cases at Outokumpu and ADI.

In the THERMAX project, RINA-CSM acts as a technical coordinator, supporting the definition of system requirements, thermal characterization, and the integration of energy recovery solutions in industrial environments. The team also plays a key role in design validation, data analysis, and dissemination activities, ensuring smooth collaboration among partners and alignment with EU objectives for energy efficiency and decarbonization.

RINA Consulting – Centro Sviluppo Materiali (CSM) is a leading Italian research center specialized in materials science, process optimization, and innovation for the steel and energy industries. With decades of experience in industrial R&D and EU-funded projects, RINA-CSM provides advanced engineering solutions aimed at improving sustainability, efficiency, and safety across manufacturing processes.

Sidenor is a steel company, leader in the European steel industry for the production of special steel long products. It is also a supplier of cold finished products in the European market. The company has production centers in Basque Country, Cantabria and Catalonia as well as business delegations in Germany, France, Italy and the U.K. It has 5 rolling mills, heat treatment and finishing facilities. The main markets are automotive, energy, railway and oil&gas. Sidenor I+D is the research and development center of Sidenor, working in 2 departments: Process and Product. It has its own Research Laboratory, which is equipped with modern test facilities for metallurgical characterization as well as for physical simulation. It also has capabilities for numerical simulation using both commercial (FEM, ...) as well as its own developed software. One of the strengths of SIDENOR I+D comes from the easy access to the production plants to carry out, at industrial level, the required experimental work including process monitoring and data acquisition.

Outokumpu will be responsible for the integration of a heat recovery concept, which is based on energy extraction from cooling metallurgical slag streams. For this concept, a heat extraction technology is to be designed to transfer waste heat to an intermediate thermal buffer, which in turn is connected to an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) in order go generate electrical power. The main part for this pilot use case scenario is the identification of a suitable slag stream and handling routine as well as the investigation of feasibility of metallurgical slag as thermal buffer material.

Outokumpu is a global leader in stainless steel production, with operations focused on delivering sustainable, high-performance solutions for various industries. The company operates state-of-the-art facilities in Europe and beyond, combining advanced metallurgy with a strong commitment to decarbonization and energy efficiency.

Kraftblock GmbH offers a wide range of decarbonizing solutions for industrial thermal processes, based on a high-temperature-energy storage platform and was founded in 2014 as a start-up at the university of Saarland. Its knowledge lies in the material development of storage media made from various recycled raw materials. The storage material is manufactured in its own production facility and the validation of the thermal properties of the material is carried out in its own technical centre. Kraftblock innovative technology offers unprecedented energy storage over extended periods of time on a large scale and enables industry to transition to sustainable thermal processes. The Kraftblock team is focusing on the design of customized storage systems built as a multifunctional platform. Such a system can store energy from different sources and is used in various applications and industries. A storage system with many solutions enables the energy world to transition away from fossil fuels towards improved energy efficiency and the breakthrough of renewable energy as process heat.

Acciaierie d’Italia in Amministrazione Straordinaria (AdI) is one of Italy’s leading steel producers, specialized in carbon steel flat products. The Taranto plant is the heart of AdI’s production and the last fully integrated steelmaking site in Italy. AdI Taranto site has an enormous experience on steel processes, managing up to 4 blast furnaces, 10 continuous casting lines, 2 hot strip mills, and a plate mill. These plants are complemented by tandem pickling lines, cold rolling mills, and advanced coating lines located across Novi Ligure, Genoa, and Taranto.

The main outcome assessment for ADI in the Thermax project is to demonstrate the efficiency of the thermal buffer and TEG (thermoelectric generator) panel system in recovering energy from discontinuous heat flows in the steelmaking process, like continuous casting lines or/and hot rolling lines. To achieve this goal, ADI will:

support the development of the thermal buffer by providing BOF slag and its thermal properties,
collaborate in the design and implementation of the Buffer–TEG panel system on AdI’s discontinuous process lines by testing the innovative developed system at both laboratory and industrial scale.

ENERBASQUE’s main involvement in the project is the construction and installation of the ORC system and WP6 coordination. The objectives are:

Successfully install the designed systems in the pilot plant.
Conduct initial testing to validate system performance under real-world conditions.
Identify and address any operational issues to optimize system functionality.

ENERBASQUE is a cutting edge company in the design and manufacture of small and medium power ORC systems, to convert waste heat into electrical/mechanical energy. Our last developments include a Reversible Organic Rankine Cycle (rORC), a machine with the capacity of working as ORC and Heat Pump.