New technology enables heavy industry to electrify high-temperature processes

Engineering company Coolbrook has conducted the first live pilot of its new technology to electrify high-temperature industrial processes. The the demonstration marked the technology’s debut activation in an industrially relevant environment setting the scene for a new clean industrial era, writes the company in a press release.

The large-scale pilot plant will demonstrate the performance of the so called RotoDynamic Technology for steam cracking in petrochemicals as well as high-temperature process heating across various industry sectors. The plant is designed to generate process temperatures of around thousand degrees with a hundred percent renewable electric power, marking a milestone towards CO₂-free manufacturing in heavy industries.

Such temperatures are necessary to replace fossil fuel burning with electrification in industries that have been considered difficult to decarbonise. Once implemented at scale, the RotoDynamic Technology has the potential to reach temperatures of 1700 degrees and cut over two billion tons of annual CO₂ emissions when applied to heavy industry.

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CO2-free production

“It was an honour to be able to show our technology in action after a decade of development,” said Ilpo Kuokkanen, Executive Chairman of Coolbrook. “We made history by proving that electrification can deliver the temperatures that industrial manufacturers need to achieve CO₂-free production.” Coolbrook was joined by representatives from its partners Shell, ABB and CEMEX, and its academic partners Budimir Rosic from the University of Oxford and Liping Xu from the University of Cambridge “Sharing this moment with our commercial and academic partners was a pivotal moment in our goal of full commercial production by 2024.”

The next milestone for Coolbrook’s RotoDynamic technology is to deploy the technology in commercial demonstration projects at customer sites. Coolbrook has announced partnerships with Shell, Braskem, CEMEX, Ultratech and ArcelorMittal to accelerate and deploy the technology in industrial facilities. Full commercial deployment of the technology is expected to start by 2025.

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