Norwegian metals and substances firm, Elkem has acquired a NOK 87-mn ($9.3-mn) grant from Enova to broaden industrial biocarbon solutions for its silicon smelters.
Enova is a Norwegian government-owned enterprise that funds and promotes the transition to a low-emission society.
The venture, which has a total budget of NOK 242-mn ($26-mn) and runs until 2028, ought to permit emission reductions of up to 0.5 million tonnes of CO₂ by growing the share of renewable carbon.
Carbon is a critical input while transforming quartz into silicon, and Elkem has for numerous years worked to replace fossil coal with biocarbon derived from charcoal, wooden chips and briquettes made from by-products of the forestry and wood industries.
“Biocarbon is one of the most vital levers available for reducing emissions from silicon manufacturing,” stated Mr. Grim Terje Øberg, projects manager at Elkem. “To rise its use at scale, we want biocarbon products which might be tailored for our huge, high-temperature furnaces.”
Biocarbon recently accounts for around 25% of carbon input at Elkem’s Norwegian smelters. The corporation goals to double that share by end-2030 and this will need latest biocarbon products better appropriate to industrial silicon manufacturing.
The Enova-supported venture will cope with this via testing out and development throughout the value chain. Between 2026 and 2028, Elkem will test different types of biomass from various manufacturers, consisting of Norwegian start-ups, thru laboratory work, pilot trials and industrial testing out at its five Norwegian smelters. Improved handling systems for biocarbon at industrial scale can be developed in parallel.
The corporation referred to that replacing half the fossil carbon utilized by silicon and ferrosilicon manufacturers globally with biocarbon should reduce global fossil CO2 emissions by more than 20 million tons yearly. Biocarbon is a central plank of Elkem’s strategy to attain net zero by 2050.
