Innovation lies at the heart of Tenova’s identity—right in the company’s name itself, derived from the Latin word innovare (to innovate) and novus (new, fresh). Though Tenova was formally established in 2007, its origins can be traced back to Techint, a company founded in 1945 to provide engineering services in Europe, the USA and Latin America. Today, with its headquarters in Castellanza, Italy, and a global presence across six continents, Tenova stands as a symbol not just of innovation, but of carefully designed and executed sustainable solutions for the metals and mining sectors.
During our conversation, Mr. Pancaldi eagerly outlined the company’s milestones and evolving vision. “Sustainability has been at the core of our strategy for many years. Of course, the concept of sustainability has evolved significantly over the past ten to fifteen years. In the early days, no one was talking about carbon dioxide; the focus was on pollutants like NOx, and the emphasis was mainly on the ‘E’ in ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance). Today, sustainability encompasses a much broader spectrum,” he explained.
Tenova’s commitment to sustainability runs deep across all facets of its operations, with equal emphasis on each component of ESG. Beyond a strong ethical foundation and a commitment to responsible market practices, the company prioritizes the health and safety of both its workforce and its clients. One standout example is Tenova’s cutting-edge technology, which enables remote operation from control rooms, drastically reducing human presence in hazardous areas and creating safer working environments. Their suite of solutions enhances safety by minimizing direct exposure to risky conditions, ensuring that both operators and employees benefit from a more secure workplace.
Returning to the environmental aspect of sustainability, Mr. Pancaldi emphasized that while much of today’s focus is on reducing CO2 emissions, other pollutants remain a significant concern. Tenova continues to address a wide array of environmental challenges in its projects, ensuring that its approach to sustainability remains comprehensive and forward-thinking.
From innovation to impact
As a technology developer focused on creating and implementing advanced solutions for the metals industry, Tenova’s role in reducing emissions is both direct and indirect. “Around 25 years ago, we made the strategic decision not to cover the entire steel value chain but to focus on specific niches where we believed we could become global leaders,” Mr. Pancaldi explained. “We even exited certain segments where we were a major player, such as rolling mills for long products. When you look at the niches we chose, they are the ones where the majority of CO2 emissions occur.”
In terms of direct contributions—helping clients reduce their emissions—Tenova leads the market in technologies for producing liquid steel as well as for furnaces used in heating and heat treatment of steel semi-finished and finished products. The company provides innovative methods for steel production and heating that either eliminate or drastically minimize CO2 emissions.
“With the ENERGIRON technology, jointly developed by Tenova and Danieli, we are a leader in direct reduction (DR), which replaces the traditional blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) route, by producing direct reduced iron (DRI) which is then melted to liquid steel in an electric arc furnace (EAF). In its basic form, DRI eliminates the need for coal or coke, instead using natural gas,” Mr. Pancaldi elucidated. “Since natural gas is primarily methane—a combination of carbon and hydrogen, both good reductants—this switch significantly reduces CO2 emissions, lowering them from over 2.3 tonnes of CO2 per tonne of steel to less than one tonne per tonne of steel, the precise number depending on the CO2 emitted in the production of electrical energy needed mainly in the EAF.”
Another crucial advantage of Tenova’s technology is its ability to sequester a portion of the CO2 produced during the process. “Of the 500–600 kilograms of CO2 produced in the DR plant, about 250 kilograms can be captured and repurposed for other applications, bringing net emissions down to approximately 300 kilograms per tonne,” Mr. Pancaldi noted. “When compared to the 2.3 tonnes of CO2 from traditional methods, the benefit of DRI technology becomes clear.”
Looking ahead, Tenova’s technology is also well-positioned to support the transition to hydrogen as a reducing agent, which offers even greater emissions reduction potential than natural gas. Remarkably, their DRI technology is versatile enough to accept any type of reductant, including hydrogen, without requiring modifications to the plant. This flexibility ensures that their technology remains future-proof as hydrogen becomes more readily available. In fact, Tenova has already supplied several plants that are currently operating with hydrogen concentrations exceeding 70% and reaching up to 100% within the gas recirculating to the reactor.
The roadblocks to revolutionizing steelmaking with DRI
Given the environmental benefits of DRI technology, one might wonder why we have not already replaced every blast furnace worldwide with a DRI plant. What are the current obstacles to fully implementing DRI on a global scale?
“There is an economic challenge,” Mr. Pancaldi pointed out. “Today, approximately 1.4 billion tonnes of steel are produced annually using the BF-BOF route. To replace that capacity, you would need 600–700 new DRI plus EAF plants, which is a massive undertaking. And let us not forget, many of the existing blast furnaces, particularly those in China, are relatively new. A large portion of steel production capacity has been added in the last 20 years, and with a typical blast furnace lifespan of 40 years, it is still too early to economically justify replacing them.”
Another major constraint is the quality of iron ore. While DRI-EAF technology offers many advantages, it requires high-quality iron ore with an iron content of 66–67%. The issue is not with the DRI plant itself—those can operate regardless of ore quality. However, when lower-quality ore is used, placing the resulting DRI into an EAF generates a significant amount of slag, leading to steel losses in the form of iron oxide trapped within the slag and not allowing the furnace to work efficiently.
Tenova, however, has devised an innovative solution to address this problem. “High-quality pellets are already in short supply, and with the current investment trends in DRI, we are predicting a shortage of these materials in the next five to ten years,” Mr. Pancaldi highlighted. “Our solution is a DRI plant combined with an Open Slag Bath Furnace (OSBF), which can process DRI of much lower quality. The final product is liquid pig iron, which is identical to what is produced in a blast furnace. This pig iron can then be used in a basic oxygen furnace to make steel. Essentially, this allows us to utilize lower-quality pellets that would be unsuitable for a traditional DRI-EAF plant.”
Rethinking EAF
The second part of the equation for upstream emissions reduction concerns EAF technology. As Mr. Pancaldi elucidated, while EAFs, like DRI, are positioned as ideal solutions for addressing emissions, two significant challenges remain: the availability of scrap and its quality.
“First of all, there is simply not enough scrap available to produce the 2 billion tonnes of steel required annually by the market. Secondly, while steel is infinitely recyclable, some alloying elements, such as copper, are also melted during the recycling process. This makes it difficult to remove copper from the molten steel. As a result, each time steel is recycled, the copper percentage increases, which can negatively affect the properties of more sophisticated steels,” Mr. Pancaldi explained.
Modern EAFs are vastly different from their predecessors, as Mr. Pancaldi noted, highlighting the advancements in capacity—from 50–100 tonnes to now over 300 tonnes of tapping capacity and over 450t/h of liquid steel. However, these improvements have introduced new challenges.
At Tenova, the term EAF has taken on a revolutionary meaning, as they have made significant enhancements to improve efficiency. “One of the key innovations we developed is the Consteel® system, a continuous charging and preheating mechanism for scrap. Preheating is crucial because it utilizes some of the heat generated by the furnace, reducing the amount of new energy required. But the real transformation lies in the continuous charging aspect, which allows for a fundamentally different operational approach,” Mr. Pancaldi described.
Traditionally, in an EAF, scrap is added to the melting vessel using large buckets, where electrical energy creates sparks between electrodes and melts the scrap. “Now, imagine a system where you are never starting from cold, solid scrap. The goal is to maintain a hot liquid steel heel inside the vessel. Instead of melting scrap directly through electrical sparks, we continuously inject solid scrap into this very hot liquid. This method is far more efficient,” Mr. Pancaldi emphasized.
“Moreover, by keeping the furnace covered and eliminating the need to open the roof for additional scrap, we minimize heat losses. This leads to lower operational costs, reduced energy consumption, and decreased fugitive emissions—while also enhancing the quality of the final product. This efficiency is particularly important when melting DRI, which is in solid form. In a traditional furnace, DRI is added in large buckets, but with our system, we can continuously inject smaller amounts of DRI into the hot liquid, ensuring a more efficient melting process.”
Tenova has also tackled the challenge of homogenizing the liquid steel bath within the large vessel. In collaboration with ABB, they introduced the Consteerer®, a magnetic induction system that continuously stirs the molten steel inside the furnace.
The size and capacity of modern EAFs also pose greater challenges to the electrical grid. While continuous charging of the furnace can reduce disturbances to the grid, with the size of the EAF increased additional equipment must be added, such as Statcom systems. “As a further improvement we are now fundamentally changing how we connect the grid to the furnace and supply energy, proposing a system by General Electric called Direct Feed, which uses a high-voltage inverter instead of a transformer. This drastically reduces disturbances sent back to the grid, which is essential. If we do not meet the limits set for grid connections, we cannot install the furnace. Our innovations enable us to stay within these limits,” Mr. Pancaldi remarked. “Overall, this represents a completely different machine from what existed years ago, much more sophisticated and digitally controlled.”
From gas to green
In the downstream portion of its business, Tenova is actively contributing to emissions reduction by decarbonizing heat generation. “CO2 is produced downstream mainly because steel must be heated multiple times, often to very high temperatures, around 1100–1200 degrees Celsius. Traditionally, gas-fired burners have been used for this stage,” stated Mr. Pancaldi.
To address this challenge, Tenova has transitioned from conventional burners to recuperative and regenerative burners, which recycle the heat lost by the system to preheat the incoming gas or air. This process has been enhanced through improved combustion control using digital tools.
“We are also striving to electrify heat generation as much as possible within certain temperature ranges. Using electrical energy, typically in the form of induction, is more efficient and reduces our reliance on gas and the direct production of CO2. While it is still essential to decarbonize electrical energy, this shift transforms the problem into something more manageable. However, there are still situations where a flame is necessary to achieve specific temperatures. In those cases, we utilize burners that can be fed with hydrogen. We now offer a full range of burners that operate seamlessly between natural gas and hydrogen,” Mr. Pancaldi clarified.
Recently, Tenova installed a 1 MW electrolyzer at their facility in Castellanza, enabling on-site testing of their hydrogen burners. “We can generate and store hydrogen (and oxygen) on-site, allowing us to test the entire value chain. We start with photovoltaic panels to produce green energy, which power the electrolyzer to produce hydrogen and oxygen. These, in turn, are used in the burners we are testing in our lab,” he explained.
On the topic of hydrogen, Mr. Pancaldi mentioned that Tenova has patented a technology for producing what is known as turquoise hydrogen. Traditional green hydrogen production via electrolysis has significant drawbacks, as it consumes a large amount of green energy and pure water—both scarce resources. Producing one kilogram of hydrogen requires approximately 60 kWh of electrical energy.
In contrast, turquoise hydrogen is produced through pyrolysis from natural gas. During this process, natural gas is heated to about 1,500 °C in the absence of oxygen, resulting in carbon separating from hydrogen without forming CO2. “The advantage is that this method requires only about 10 kWh per kilogram of hydrogen. While it does generate carbon, it remains in solid form, making it easier to manage. This carbon can, in fact, be used in various industries, as it is a valuable product in itself,” he noted.
Driving the future
To complement Tenova’s robust decarbonization efforts, the company also makes indirect contributions to CO2 reduction by helping its customers produce materials essential for energy transition solutions. One notable area of focus is the development of specialized steels, such as silicon steels, which possess unique magnetic properties vital for high-efficiency transformers and electric motors. “We are a world leader in the development and supply of technologies and equipment for the production of Grain Oriented (GO) and Non-Grain Oriented (NGO) silicon steels”, Mr. Pancaldi stated, “having supplied most of the plants that exist both in China and around the world.”
“We are involved in other initiatives as well, particularly concerning rare earth elements, which are crucial for the energy transition. For instance, we have developed processes for refining rare earths. Currently, over 95% of the refining capacity for these materials is concentrated in China, creating a significant geopolitical challenge. The Western world is heavily dependent on China for rare earths. Our new refining technologies will empower companies to refine these materials in-house. Instead of mining the rare earths and sending them to China for processing, they can now do it themselves,” Mr. Pancaldi emphasized.
Returning to steel production, he noted that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to the challenges faced. As we can see from Tenova’s example, the issues we encounter today are less about technical feasibility and more about economic viability. It is not merely a matter of capital expenditures (CapEx); operating expenses (OpEx) are becoming increasingly critical. While achieving “zero” emissions may be a challenging goal—the path toward it might be bumpy—Mr. Pancaldi believes in utilizing every available option, as even small reductions in emissions can have a meaningful impact.
