New Energy for Industry (NEFI) presents the Green Foundry Concept at automotive.2023

On May 25, 2023 the NEFI-Team in Linz presents latest developments from NEFI project envIoTcast as part of automotive.2023, Austria's renowned conference for visions, innovations and future technologies in the field of modern mobility. In the NEFI project envIoTcast, the concept of a green foundry is being developed under the direction of the AIT Austrian Institute of Technology.

The goal of the project is to decarbonize the energy supply of the industry and to achieve significant energy savings in industrial processes. For this purpose, several energy-intensive high-temperature processes are being investigated and technically and economically feasible solutions for the short-term and towards a complete switch to a sustainable energy supply are being developed. The solutions are globally scalable and have enormous potential for decarbonizing the energy supply.

Christoph Zauner, Senior Research Engineer at AIT Austrian Institute of Technology and coordinator of the project: „In envIoTcast we examine several industrial companies regarding a feasible switch to natural gas alternatives. With our laboratories and simulation methods, we can see which energy source represents a climate-neutral alternative for the respective industrial furnace and production process. Many ovens can be heated with green electricity instead of natural gas, while others can be switched to green hydrogen, biomethane or synthetic methane.”

„Especially at high temperatures above 900 °C, green methane produced by methanation or in biogas plants can be considered as a very good alternative. There is also great potential in the use of furnace waste heat and the digitization of processes, where up to 30 percent of energy can be saved. “

envIoTcast offers first results: Use case voestalpine

One of the real use cases in Green Foundry 4.0 is the decarbonization of industrial furnaces in steel processing. Specifically, the decarbonization potential is being examined in heat treatment plants at various voestalpine locations. Some starting points can be adopted from the findings of envIoTcast, such as the preheating of products or the use of a thermodynamic model to test various improvement approaches. There is NOT ONLY ONE alternative to natural gas for the heat treatment of metal in the course of steel processing. The question is rather which energy source is best suited for the specific application. Among other things, green electricity, and green methane, which is produced by cleaning biogas or by synthesizing it with hydrogen and CO₂, are under consideration.

Video material: NEFI-Projekt envIoTcast

In the NEFI project envIoTcast (environmentally friendly casting), the concept of the green foundry 4.0 (Green Foundry 4.0) is being developed and demonstrated. The current video shows how in this modern and sustainable concept the different production steps are networked in terms of both energy and information technology.  

automotive.2023 takes place on May 25, 2023, at Oberbank Donau-Forum in Linz

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