Proposals should address the following:

• Development of pure hydrogen and hydrogen/standard fuel mixtures burner to be integrated in existing furnaces compliant NOx emission standards (industrial scales). Research areas should focus on flame monitoring, optimal mixture formation and impact of buoyancy effects, flame stability & flashback and reduction of emissions. The implementation of the development should be executed on a demonstrator in an operational environment ensuring a TRL 7 at project end. The demonstrator should run for a period of at least 6 months, operating for at least 100h at 100% hydrogen. The furnace thermal output should be of at least 1 MWth.
• Assessment of the impact of the use of hydrogen in its different percentages of substitution for fossil fuels in furnaces and products within different hard to abate application sectors.
• Investigation of the influence of hydrogen and higher gas supply pressures on component tightness.
• Development of concepts for the safe integration of hydrogen in industrial plants in the sectors of application and demonstration of the retrofitting of burners so that they can be operated safely with up to 100% H2 including odorants, colorants and others as applicable.
• The hydrogen-based burner should demonstrate the potential to achieve an equal or improved heating performance (in terms of energy used to heat certain mass/volume).
• Investigations of potential impacts on process performance, equipment operation and maintenance under the presence of hydrogen combustion products (heat exchangers, flame detection, heat recovery technologies, burner nozzles, etc.).
• Integration of hydrogen production units in industrial environments with high temperature processes (waste gases enthalpy content, requirements in terms of hydrogen supply pressure and purity, etc.).
• Techno-economic analysis to replicate the solution to other industrial sites. Study the impact of the H2 cost to the final costs of the final product and impact of CO2 emissions reduction in the final cost of the product (under ETS program).

Applicants should ensure and provide evidence of the availability of hydrogen, as function of the thermal output of the furnace demonstrated.