Kanthal and Danieli will supply a pilot-scale electric process gas heater for installation at Emsteel’s direct reduced iron (DRI) plant in Abu Dhabi, UAE, to electrify a part of their existing heating system. The heater, scheduled for delivery in Q1 2026, is based on Prothal® DH technology and will be the first electric process gas heater for DRI that Kanthal supplies for commercial use.
The Emsteel plant produces quality long products — heavy sections, bars, and wire rods — and features an Energiron DRI plant. Now the company will take another step toward making this low-emission plant even more environmentally friendly by installing a 1MW-size electric process gas heater, supplied by Kanthal and Danieli.
Prothal DH has been developed and tested by Kanthal and is now being prepared for commercialization together with the company’s strategic partner Danieli. The technology has the potential to completely remove the CO2 emissions from the heating process while enhancing energy efficiency.
“We’re pleased to see the technology that we have developed now being implemented in an end-user production setting,” said Simon Lile, president, business unit heating systems at Kanthal. “To enable industrial decarbonization, electric preheating of gas will become a significantly important application in the next few years, and we are getting ready to meet that demand.”
In 2024, Kanthal and Danieli signed a strategic partnership agreement to develop and industrialize full-scale electric process gas heaters for DRI and other ironmaking applications. The heating solution is being developed for hydrogen, natural gas, and combinations, thereby enabling retrofitting of existing DRI plants. By installing this technology in Energiron hydrogen-ready DRI plants, fully emission-free DRI production can be achieved. Even for natural gas-based DRI plants, a more than 30 percent reduction of CO2 emissions will be achieved when electrifying the heating system.
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