June 2022
The MaxH2DR project started in June 2022. In order to raise awareness of the project and to engage relevant stakeholders, also beyond the steel industry, the project took part as a first presentation to EU Green Week Partner Event - CSP webinar , where ESTEP hold a webinar with focus on "The Clean Steel Partnership: a driver to net zero, from research to deployment of ground-breaking technologies for steel" on 1 June 2022. 

The project also took part to the ESTEP Dissemination event 2022 ‘Beyond steel research projects’,  which was held by ESTEP on 22 June 2022. 

October 2022
The kick-off meetings of the MaxH2DR project took place on 18-19 October 2022 in Brussels at the ESTEP premises. This was the first real-life encounter between the different project partners.

November 2022
The MaxH2DR project was presented at the second international conference dedicated on hydrogen "H2 for Green Steel - Hydrogen route for a green steelmaking process and applications", organised by the ESTEP Focus Group Low Carbon & Energy Efficiency on 30 November 2022 in Versailles (France). 

March 2023
The project consortium had its second General Assembly meeting on 27 & 29 March 2023 in Pisa at the SSSA premises. It was then followed by a presentation of the project at the ESTEP Spring Dissemination Event 2023, which took place in-person on 29 & 30 March 2023 at the Aula Magna of Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (SSSA) in Pisa, Italy.

June 2023
Université de Lorraine presented the project at a national conference “ La métallurgie, quel avenir ! » (Metallurgy, what a future !) in Grenoble from 5 to 9 June 2023.

September 2023
Abo Akademi presented some preliminary results of the project on the 10^th International Conference on Modelling and Simulation of Metallurgical Processes in Steelmaking (SteelSIM 2023), which took place from 11 to 13 September 2023 at Warwick (UK). Preliminary results were also presented at the 14^th European Congress of Chemical Engineering (ECCE2023), which was scheduled on 17-21 September 2023 in Berlin (Germany).

October 2023
The Consortium had its third General Assembly meeting on 19 & 20 October 2023 in Nancy at the Institut Jean Lamour. 

November 2023
A workshop entitled “La decarbonizzazione dell’industrial siderurgica: un passo avanti” (“The decarbonisation of the steel industry: one step forward”) took place on 16 November 2023 in Taranto (Italy). SSSA presented the MaxH2DR project.

Université de Lorraine also presented the MaxH2DR on 27 November 2023 at a National seminar organized by the French Ministry of Research entitled “ Les financements européens pour la décarbonation de l’industrie” (European funding for the decarbonization of the industry).

December 2023
Université de Lorraine presented the different paths for decarbonising the steel industry, in which it explained the MaxH2DR project at the annual French national conference “Rencontres Matériaux et société – SF2M” on 1 December 2023 in Paris (France).

February 2024
An abstract entitled “A Digital toolkit to investigate and guide the transition towards H2-based DRI-based steelmaking considering the effects on energy management” and authored by SSSA was submitted and accepted for presentation at the ESTEP Digital4Environment workshop, which was held in Bardolino (Italy) on 20-21.02.2024.

March 2024
BFI, represented by Thorsten Hauck, presented the MaxH2DR project at the ESTEP Spring Dissemination event, held on 14 March 2024 in Brussels.

Furthermore, Abo Akademi, together with the University of Naples, published a scientific article on "Modelling of iron oxide reduction by hydrogen in a small fixed bed", in the Chemical Engineering Science journal. 
The complete reference of the article is available on open access here and here below: 
Salucci, E., A. D’Angelo, V. Russo, H. Grénman and H. Saxén, “Modelling of iron oxide reduction by hydrogen in a small fixed bed”, Chemical Engineering Science 292 (2024) 119934

July 2024
Another scientific publication was published by Abo Akademi and the School of Metallurgty from Shenyang on "Mathematical optimization modeling for scenario analysis of integrated steelworks transitioning towards hydrogen-based reduction" in the Energy journal.
The complete reference of the article is available on open access here and here below: 
Haikarainen C., Shao L., Pettersson F., Saxén H., "Mathematical optimization modeling for scenario analysis of integrated steelworks transitioning towards hydrogen-based reduction", Energy 305 (2024) 132366.

September 2024
Successful collaborative efforts between the Ruhr-University Bochum and the University of Salerno have been presented at the 11th International Conference on Conveying and Handling of Particulate Solids (ChoPs), which took place from 2 to 4 September in Edinburgh (UK),

Later in the month, Ismael Matino (SSSA) presented successfully the first outcomes of the project at the 40th National Congress of the Associazione Italiana di Metallurgia in Naples (Italy).

October 2024
October 2024 was a very busy month for the MaxH2DR project. On 15 - 16 October, the consortium came together again for its General Assembly meeting in Bardolino (Italy). The meeting was followed with a strong presence of the project at the 9th European Coke and Ironmaking Congress (ECIC), which was also held in Bardolino. Several partners presented and discussed 5 presentations and 1 poster. This has allowed to extensively present the project intermediate results to a wide audience of more than 240 scientist and technicians from both academia and industry specialised on steelmaking.

Furthermore, consortium partner CiaoTech - PNO also presented the project and its outcomes at the 6th edition of Innovation Days in Puglia, organized by the ILSOLE24ORE on 17 October 2024.

November 2024
Congratulations! Net-Zero Industries Award for MaxH2DR as an outstanding project ! 
The project MaxH2DR won the price of the 'National Winner Germany' of the Net-Zero-Industries Award 2024 within the category of outstanding projects. The Net-Zero-Industries Awards in several categories were presented on November 18 at the COP29 in Baku (Azerbaijan). 

The press release (in German) is available here 

February 2025
The MaxH2DR consortium started to build connections with fellow EU-funded projects. In particular, Thomas Piontek from BFI presented the MaxH2DR project at the first HBI C-Flex workshop on 25 February 2025. The workshop gathered over 70 participants and explored 4 other Horizon Europe projects, also dealing with the topic of hydrogen usage for decarbonisation of steel production: Safe H-DRI, RecHycle, HBI C-Flex, and MaxH2DR.

May 2025
MaxH2DR went to the Iron & Steel Technology Conference and Exposition in Nashville (USA) in May 2025! Ismael Matino (SSSA) presented the digital simulation toolkit developed within the project, on 6 May 2025 at AISTech2025. 

June 2025
The MaxH2DR project was presented by Thorsten Hauck from BFI at the ESTEP Spring Dissemination Event in Krakow Poland (5-6 June 2025). A current state of the project was shared with the audience.
Participation in this event provided an opportunity for enriching exchanges with experts and stakeholders committed to accelerating the transition to green steel. The lessons learned reinforce the importance of collaborative R&D and integrated technological approaches to address future challenges.

The webpage will be regularly updated throughout the whole project

This project has received funding from the European Union under grant agreement NUMBER — 101058429 — MaxH2DR

The information and views set out in this webpage do not necessarily reflect the official opinion of the European Commission. The European Commission does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included in this webpage. Neither the European Commission nor any person acting on the European Commission’s behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.