India to get first 100% hydrogen DRI pilot plant

The CSIR-Institute of Minerals and Materials Technology (CSIR-IMMT) will lead a Rs 207-crore national pilot project to develop India’s first Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) plant running entirely on hydrogen, aimed at reducing carbon emissions from the steel sector, a senior official said.

The 20-tonne-per-day pilot project has received in-principle approval from the Ministry of Steel and the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).
It will receive Rs 113 crore in government support under the National Green Hydrogen Mission, with the remaining funding to be contributed by consortium partners. CSIR-IMMT Director Ramanuj Narayan told PTI that the facility is expected to be completed by August 2029 and will focus on developing and demonstrating hydrogen-based DRI technology suited to Indian conditions, particularly the use of domestic iron ore.

The consortium led by CSIR-IMMT includes Godavari Power and Ispat Ltd, Lloyd Steel, Jindal Stainless and Thyssenkrupp Industries India. Tata Steel has also agreed to join the consortium, and efforts are being made to bring other major steel producers, including Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL), into the project, said scientist P C Beuria, the head of the Mineral Processing Division at CSIR-IMMT.

SP Das, chief scientist in the division, said some private steelmakers are currently working on projects involving partial use of hydrogen, with plans to increase its share gradually.
“In contrast, the CSIR project is focusing on a 100 per cent hydrogen-based DRI plant,” he said.

The proposed facility will use a vertical shaft furnace designed to operate entirely on hydrogen.
Beuria said a key challenge will be processing India’s relatively low-grade hematite ores. Several international hydrogen-DRI projects use higher-grade magnetite, making the Indian raw material challenge different, he said.

Das said Bhubaneswar-based CSIR-IMMT is working on ore processing and reduction technologies to ensure that the proposed plant can handle the characteristics of Indian iron ore. “Globally, the technology is still at the pilot stage, and the Indian challenge is different because of the inferior quality of ore available here,” he said.
Beuria said the economics of green steel, however, remains a major hurdle. Green hydrogen currently costs around $5 per kg and would need to become substantially cheaper, at around $1 per kg, for hydrogen-based steelmaking to become commercially competitive.     

At present, green steel production costs around USD 200 more per tonne than conventional steel produced using fossil fuels, they said.
To address the technological challenges involved in scaling up, CSIR-IMMT is undertaking intermediate-scale work before moving to the proposed national pilot plant.
“The behaviour of materials changes when the process is scaled up, so intermediate-scale testing is important before moving to the 20-tonne-per-day facility,” Beuria said.
As part of this effort, the institute is setting up a 3-tonne-per-day DRI plant using its own resources to bridge the gap between laboratory-scale experiments and the larger national pilot project.
CSIR-IMMT has also received in-principle approval for a separate Rs 20-crore rotary kiln pilot project to examine the injection of up to 30 per cent hydrogen along with biochar into existing DRI processes, officials said.

The second project, backed by a Rs 7.5-crore government grant, is aimed at providing a transition pathway for existing steel plants that may not be able to immediately shift to 100 per cent hydrogen-based production, they said.

Indigenous development of 100 per cent hydrogen-fired DRI technology is critical for India to decarbonise its steel sector, cut reliance on coking coal imports, and meet its net-zero commitments while retaining self-sufficiency in a strategically vital industry, they added.