Hydrogen combustion pilot project for mining in Chile

Posted on: 02 / 02 / 2025 | 0 Comentarios | Tags: Hydrogen Burners, Hydrogen combustion project, Hydrogen combustion project for Chilean mining

E&M Combustión develops a hydrogen combustion pilot project for mining in Chile, with the aim of supporting the decarbonization of this sector projected by the country’s Government. 

Spanish energy engineering has developed a “plug and play” containerized hydrogen combustion unit, which will initially be used to test the decarbonization of Chile’s mining industry. This is a pilot project led by local companies Reduze, Sun Solution and Lipigas, and aimed at validating its use in heating and domestic hot water generation.

The development is part of an R&D project financed by the Government of Chile, through the Corfo agency, aimed at reducing CO2 emissions through the use of blending in boilers in the mining industry. The pilot project plans to validate the new products until they reach the TRL-9 technological maturity scale, consisting of market-level services, through exhaustive testing in real mining environments.

Hydrogen combustion pilot project

The “plug and play” containerized unit (ready to connect and use) consists of a comprehensive thermal installation made to measure, assembled and pre-installed in Artea. It is designed as a “pilot project” to promote more sustainable practices and decarbonize mining industry processes. It will work with hydrogen and LPG at the same time, in different proportions, through different gas ramps, through the process known as blending. Furthermore, given its compact characteristics concentrated in a 20-foot container, the hydrogen combustion plant will be easily transferred in successive phases to be tested in other industrial sectors of various applications.

Among the objectives of the project is also to deepen the understanding of the application of hydrogen in company boilers, identifying necessary processes, procedures and safety standards, as well as developing an innovative service adapted to the specific needs of this mining industry, a crucial sector in Chile, to contribute to its energy transition.

After carrying out the final assembly in the container of all the elements, among which are the boiler, the JBD 500 GH2 mixed burner, pipes, recirculation chimney, expander vessel, O2 probes, fan heaters to dissipate heat, etc., the hydrogen combustion installation developed by E&M Combustión has passed the factory tests (FAT) and has been sent to the client to soon begin hot tests at its location in Chile.

With this initiative, E&M Combustión continues with the development of more efficient and less polluting combustion technologies through the use of hydrogen. In the area of ​​this fuel, the company has several R&D projects in development, among which is a European fluid-dynamic computational R&D&I project to design hydrogen burners.

E&M Combustion

Since 2004, E&M Combustión has designed and manufactured high-tech industrial burners, adapted to customer needs, which provide specific solutions in industrial combustion processes. The equipment designed by the company has low and very low polluting emissions that allow, at the same time, significant energy savings.

As industrial combustion engineering, the Basque company located in Artea develops innovative combustion technologies to offer gas, diesel, mixed and alternative fuel burners, made to measure. The company has established itself as an international reference in ATEX and NEC burners to operate in potentially explosive atmospheres, as well as hot gas generators and combustion equipment for alternative fuels such as Hydrogen and Biogas