VULKANO successfully come to the end

VULKANO team during Valji visit in the Final Event

The Final Event of VULKANO project took place in Celje (Slovenia) on 23rd-24th January 2020 in presence of the Project officer and Technical Advisor of the European Commission. The meeting gathered more than 30 members of 11 companies located in 6 different countries, in order to review the final status of the project after the forty two months of execution.

This Final Event comprised several parts. Firstly, during the morning on 23rd it was held the last General Assembly where it was reviewed internally the results of the project, mainly the implementation solutions in the demo sites.

The same day during the afternoon and with the presence of the members of the EC, a visit was made to Valji facilities where it was possible to verify in situ the implementation of the replica furnace along with the rest of the solutions: co-firing system, PCMs (phase change material), new refractory materials and monitoring and control system.  This visit offered a better understanding of the results obtained in the project which were exposed to the Project officer and the Technical advisor during the Review meeting held the next day on 24th. The review meeting included all work packages, not only technical, but also the results of exploitation and dissemination were exposed. Of relevant interest were the results related to the implementations of the pilot demos.

VULKANO SOLUTIONS SCHEME

The Final event concluded on the 24th with a presentation of the results to interested companies and stakeholders in order to show the viability of VULKANO solutions in an individual and integrated way, so the holistic predictive tool. The event was attended by a large number of stakeholders and companies from Slovenia.

As a conclusion, VULKANO project has satisfactorily achieved its objectives throughout this time, obtaining useful results. Two demo furnaces which integrate 5 innovative solutions: improved refractory materials, PCM-based energy recovery, co-firing system with renewable gases, monitoring and control system and finally holistic predictive tool. Three energy intensive sectors have been involved: ceramic and steel as demo sites and aluminium as case study in theoretical demo.

It has been a pleasure for CIDAUT to be part of this project and work on the VULKANO project with the great team that all the members of the consortium comprise. Thank you!

More info: http://www.vulkano-h2020.eu/

 

Dissemination activities on VULKANO H2020 project

Two new different diffusion actions have been carried out within VULKANO H2020 Project.

The first one was the assistance to the 9th European Combustion Meeting between 14th and 18th of April in Lisbon (Portugal). It was presented the poster entitled: “Natural Gas replacement by syngas in Resource Energy Intensive Industries (REII) burners: numerical CFD evaluation”. This poster gathered the theoretical study for the natural gas substitution by syngas as well as the burner modifications required to achieve the VULKANO objective of co-firing syngas from 10% to 40% of substitution. More than 180 posters in combustion topics were presented by 120 different authors speaking about topics such as: laminar flames, turbulent flames, reaction kinetics, gas turbines, etc.

The second one was the assistance to the 11th Mediterranean Combustion Symposium from 16th to 20th of June in Tenerife, Spain. There, the last part of VULKANO progress was presented in the paper entitled “CFD approach in natural gas hybrid burners adapted for syngas combustion in REII”. This paper goes one step further in the design of new hybrid burners to achieve 100% of natural gas substitution by renewable gases such as process-off-gases and bio-syngases. Both works have been carried out in close collaboration with the Institute of Power Engineering of Warsaw (Poland).

VULKANO project continues with the III General Assembly Meeting

The third General Assembly Meeting of VULKANO project took place in Warsaw on 4-5th July 2018 in presence of the Project Technical Advisor of the European Commission. The meeting gathered more than 30 members of 11 companies located in 6 different countries, in order to review the general status of the project after the first twenty four months of execution.

The project has satisfactorily achieved its objectives throughout this time, obtaining useful results:

  • Operating conditions of the two demo site furnaces (steel and ceramic sector) and the requirements from the new technology solutions to be implemented at the furnace have been defined.
  • Development of Phase Change Materials (PCM) high temperature (up to 900ºC). After the simulations and the laboratory tests, the production of new PCM has started as well as it pre-implementation in ceramic furnace.
  • Development of new refractories with the use of byproducts for the production of innovative materials. For steel furnace, materials based on alumina are used, while based on zirconia materials have been employed for the ceramic furnace.
  • Feasibility of the natural gas substitution by the different syngas sources and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of syngas/natural gas mixtures with adapted co-firing burners. Two different burners have been developed: dedicated burner for 100% of syngas combustion and hybrid burner for 0-100% of syngas / natural gas combustion.
  • Optimization of the furnace monitoring and control system through metaheuristics algorithms and implementation. Steel case: automatization of gasifier&co-firing system. Ceramic case: control of PCM system.
  • Presentation of a flexible holistic in-house predictive tool prioritizing the critical parameters for each sector with a video explicative.
  • Start the construction of the replica furnace.
  • Updated market analysis presentation.

With the results of the assessment, IEn as Task leader on WP5.2, 5.3 and 5.4, presented the co-firing CFD simulations, jointly undertaken by IEn and CIDAUT for the unmodified burners. It has been designed, simulated and experimentally tested two new burners: a hybrid one to operate between 0 to 100% of syngas substitution and a dedicated one to operate at 100% with syngas.

Furthermore, VULKANO project partners have already generated seven scientific publications and with an estimated number of 13 to 15 during 2019. CIDAUT has already presented one paper in ECOS Conference in Guimaraes entitled “Application of the CFD simulation to the evaluation of natural gas replacement by syngas in burners of the ceramic sector”.

More info: http://www.vulkano-h2020.eu/

Keywords: VULKANO, CFD, co-firing, syngas, furnaces

 

CIDAUT presents VULKANO in ECOS2018

ECOS 2018 is the 31st International Conference on Efficiency, Cost, Optimization, Simulation and Environmental Impact of Energy Systems which has been taken place in Guimarães between the 18th and the 21st of June.

Main topics discussed during the conference have been exergy as a process optimization, ORC, thermal recovery, fuel cells, energy storage, renewable energy, combustion, etc.

Under VULKANO Project CIDAUT’s paper entitled “Application of the CFD simulation to the evaluation of natural gas replacement by syngas in burners of the ceramic sector” has been presented.This paper gathers a wide evaluation of the alternatives in the reduction of fossil fuel consumption, such as natural gas, promoting its substitution by an alternative fuel (Co-firing). A revision of the types of syngas with potential for use has been carried out, as well as the evaluation of the physical properties of the mixtures from the combustion operation point of view. The feasibility study has taken into consideration parameters such as the low heat value, the Woobe index, adiabatic flame temperature, air preheating temperature, total flue flow and laminar flame velocity. The modifications for SG co-firing have been evaluated using CFD simulations to establish the proper design of the mix zone to ensure the mixture between the air, syngas and natural gas. Moreover, despite the initial objective was to replace 40% of natural gas energy by syngas in an industrial ceramic furnace, new dedicated burners for 100% of syngas substitution have been designed and simulated.

The Institute of Power Engineering (IEn), as partner of CIDAUT in VULKANO, also presented a paper entitled “CFD analysis of natural gas substitution by syngas in industrial furnaces” which evaluated the integration of new burners in the whole furnace system and simulating the real heating process in steel sector.

Furthermore, the VALORCOMP project partners have also been involved attending to different technical presentations in topics related with biomass, energy use and combustion, gasification, reaction engineering and CO2 mitigation.

More info about the conference in: http://www.ecos2018.org/

More info about VULKANO project: http://www.vulkano-h2020.eu/

Keywords: VULKANO, ECOS2018, CFD, Burner, VALORCOMP

VULKANO project continues with the First Review Meeting

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The first Review Meeting of VULKANO project took place in Zaragoza on 13-14th December 2017 with the presence of the Project Technical Advisor of the European Commission. The meeting gathered more than 30 members from the consortium in order to review the general status of the project after the first eighteen months of execution.

The project has satisfactorily achieved its objectives throughout this time, obtaining useful results:

  • Operating conditions of the two demo site furnaces (steel and ceramic sector) and the requirements from the new technology solutions to be implemented at the furnace have been defined.
  • Development of high temperature PCM. Laboratory tests have been carried out to compare the results obtained in simulations. Pre-implementation has been performed in a ceramic furnace.
  • Compositions of the new refractories blend have been reported. For steel furnace, materials based on alumina are used, while based on zirconia materials have been employed for the ceramic furnace.
  • Feasibility of the natural gas substitution by the different syngas sources has been analyzed and CFD simulation of syngas/natural gas mixtures with adapted co-firing burners has been performed.
  • The development and implementation of the furnace monitoring and control system has been updated.
  • Development and implementation of a flexible holistic in-house predictive tool prioritizing the critical parameters for each sector.
  • Technical documentation to start the construction of the replica furnace has been prepared.
  • An updated market analysis presentation has been carried out.

As Task leader on WP5.1 “Designing and validating of co-firing systems”, CIDAUT presented to the Project Technical Advisor the results obtained in the feasibility assessment of natural gas substitution by alternative fuels (co-firing) in furnaces. Several syngas streams were considered from biomass gasification and process off-gases from steal sector.

With the results of the assessment, IEn as Task leader on WP5.2, presented the co-firing CFD simulations, jointly undertaken by IEn and CIDAUT for the unmodified burners. A deployment plan to design new adapted burners for an optimal co-firing was also established.

More info: http://www.vulkano-h2020.eu/

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Keywords: VULKANO, co-firing, syngas, furnaces