Tata Steel contracted Pyro Green-Gas in 2023 to supply coke oven gas (COG) purification solutions and hydrogen production processes to extract hydrogen and other toxic gases from the blast furnace process before separating, cleaning and processing the gases to bring hydrogen to 99.999% purity. 

“Our engineers worked closely with Tata Steel to develop a solution to meet the needs of one of the largest steel facilities in the world, including the integration of advanced solutions (such as water-injected compressors that eliminate the potential for oil contamination during the processing of hydrogen) further contributing to sustainability in steelmaking,” said P. Peter Pascali, president and chief executive officer of PyroGenesis. 

Now that the project has been successfully completed, the systems Pyro Green-Gas developed are in continuous full-time operation at the Tata Steel facility in Kalinganagar, India. The company said the reformed hydrogen is then reused by other applications at the facility to improve production efficiency and environmental outcomes. 

“The systems that we have installed at the Tata Steel Kalinganagar facility are purifying 32,000 cubic meters of coke oven gas per hour while extracting 620 cubic meters of ready-to-use hydrogen per hour. This represents just a fraction of the potential impact our technologies can have as more steel plants embrace the concept of COG valorization,” said Pascali. 

PyroGenesis said its development of coke oven gas cleaning solutions is part of its three-columned solution ecosystem including energy transition and emissions reduction, waste remediation, and commodity security and optimization.