The companies Calcinor, Sidenor, SBS Process, Lointek, Petronor Innovación, Smurfit Kappa, Nortegas, and the Bilbao Bizkaia Water Consortium, together with the Energy Cluster and the Tecnalia research and technological development centre, have joined forces to create the first business and technological hub in the Basque Country aimed at the decarbonisation of industry.

The Basque Industrial Hub for Circularity (BIH4C), led by Tecnalia, aims to promote the transformation of existing industrial areas through the search for and implementation of energy synergies, the efficient use of resources and technological innovation, sources from the innovation hub described in a press release.

BIH4C will promote the establishment of synergies between different industrial sectors through the development and demonstration of innovative decarbonisation technologies in real operating environments. Among others, the oxy-combustion of hydrogen in the steel industry, potentially from the oxygen and hydrogen produced by electrolysis in the refining sector; the capture of CO2 in the lime industry and its use to produce methane or, in the future, synthetic fuels in the refining sector; or the carbonation of steel slag using the CO2 captured in the lime industry, for the production of building materials in the cement industry. Other possible synergies will also be explored in the form of hub expansion plans, for example the production of biofuels from industrial by-products such as paper waste or lignin.

The aim is to identify emission reduction opportunities through industrial synergies and technological validation in the industrial environment, with the vision of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% and the consumption of material resources, water and energy of the participating companies by 10% in the coming years. In addition, BIH4C will develop a tool to identify circular synergies in terms of energy and resource use in Basque industry. This tool will allow mapping and quantifying, by industrial areas, the generation and demand of ‘multi-carriers’ such as O2, H2, CO2, methane or various waste and raw materials, and assessing the impact that circularity can have on the efficient use of raw materials and the decarbonisation of Basque industry…