Sustainable steel production by efficient use of discarded textiles

Purpose and goal:

The purpose of this project is to evaluate the possibility of reducing the fossil carbon dioxide emissions from steel production by replacing the fossil coal with a sustainably produced coal made from textile waste and at the same time making the use of available resources more efficient, in this case end-of-life textiles. Thus, the project goal is to investigate the technical potential and sustainability benefit of using textile waste in the production of sustainable coal for use in steel production.

Expected results and effects:

Desired project results would be that the specifications of the carbon produced via slow pyrolysis of the textile waste are consistent with the fossil carbon or comparable to biochar from forest-based biomass. A positive results would consequently mean that the raw material base for biobased carbon production can be increased and enable a large-scale replacement of fossil raw materials and reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

Approach and implementation:

The work is planned to be divided into six work packages (WP), where WP1 focuses on analytical evaluation of textile streams, WP2 on experimental pyrolysis trials, WP3 on analysis of the quality of the biobased carbon, WP4 on post-processing of the biobased carbon, WP5 on evaluation of the sustainability of the concept and finally WP6 on project management and reporting.