Why Solving Heavy Industry Emissions Could Change the Climate Fight

Decarbonising the heavy industry sector has long been considered one of the most significant challenges in the global energy transition. Sectors such as cement, steel, chemicals, petrochemicals, and aluminum depend on extremely high temperatures—often above 1,000 °C—to operate. Today, those temperatures are typically achieved by burning fossil fuels, making these industries responsible for a massive share of global carbon emissions.

Photo Credit - Coolbrook

A new approach developed by Coolbrook proposes a fundamentally different solution: generating industrial heat using electricity instead of combustion. Its core technologies—the RotoDynamic Heater™ (RDH) and RotoDynamic Reactor™ (RDR)—are designed to electrify high-temperature processes previously considered “hard to abate.”

If deployed at scale, this technology could reduce global industrial CO₂ emissions by up to 2.4 gigatons annually—roughly 30% of industrial emissions and about 7% of total global emissions.

Why Heavy Industry Is So Hard to Decarbonize

Three industries alone—chemicals and petrochemicals, iron and steel, and cement—account for more than half of industrial energy consumption and roughly two-thirds of industrial CO₂ emissions. The challenge stems from physics and engineering constraints:

• Heat pumps cannot easily reach extreme temperatures without complex multi-stage systems.
• Electric resistance heating struggles with material durability at very high temperatures.
• Green hydrogen introduces efficiency losses during production, transport, and combustion.
• Carbon capture is costly and difficult to retrofit.
• Biomass supply is insufficient for global industrial demand.

A scalable solution requires a new method of producing heat—one that bypasses combustion entirely.

Technology Origins: Applying Turbomachinery Physics in Reverse

The principles behind rotodynamic heating trace back to turbomachinery science developed in the 19th century. In 1884, Sir Charles Parsons invented the modern steam turbine, establishing the thermodynamic relationships between pressure, velocity, and temperature that later enabled jet engines and power generation systems.

Rotodynamic technology applies those same principles differently. Instead of minimizing heat during compression—as aviation engines do—the system intentionally creates heat through controlled gas dynamics.

How the Rotodynamic Reactor Generates Heat Without Fuel

Photo Credit - Coolbrook: Coolbrook Roto Dynamic Reactor

The RotoDynamic Reactor is essentially a high-speed electric turbomachine. Its operation can be summarised in four stages:

1. Gas Preheating – A working gas enters the reactor.
2. Supersonic Acceleration – A rotor spinning at extremely high speeds accelerates the gas.
3. Shock Formation – The gas encounters a diffuser where shock waves develop.
4. Energy Conversion – The collapse of these shocks converts kinetic energy into heat within milliseconds.

This process can generate temperatures approaching 1,700 °C without combustion.

The reactor’s toroidal geometry allows multiple circulation passes through rotor-stator stages, increasing energy density while keeping the system compact. Electrical-to-heat conversion efficiency can reach approximately 90–95%.

RotoDynamic Heater vs. RotoDynamic Reactor

Although both technologies rely on the same physics, their applications differ:

RotoDynamic Heater (RDH)

• Electrifies industrial process heating
• Heats gases such as air, nitrogen, steam, and CO₂
• Replaces fossil-fuel burners in furnaces and kilns
• Scales to equipment sizes above 50 MW
• Can retrofit into existing industrial plants

RotoDynamic Reactor (RDR)

• Directly replaces combustion-based chemical reactors
• Enables ultra-fast heating for processes like steam cracking
• Improves product yields due to precise temperature control
• Reduces coking and maintenance requirements

Industry Applications

1. Cement Production

Cement manufacturing is responsible for roughly one-third of industrial CO₂ emissions. Electrifying high-temperature heat could eliminate about 1 billion tons of fossil-fuel emissions annually.

Key use cases include:

• Clay calcination
• Kiln precalciner electrification
• White cement production with increased capacity
• Combustion air heating for kilns

2. Petrochemical Industry

Petrochemicals generate approximately 1.5 billion tons of CO₂ per year. Steam cracking furnaces are among the most energy-intensive processes in manufacturing.

Rotodynamic electrification can:

• Replace fossil-fuel furnaces
• Reduce emissions by hundreds of millions of tons annually
• Increase valuable output (ethylene, propylene) by up to ~10%
• Enable processing of recycled plastic feedstocks

A pilot facility demonstrating this approach has been installed at the Brightlands Chemelot Campus adjacent to the industrial complex Chemelot.

3. Iron and Steel Manufacturing

Steel production contributes roughly 7–9% of global emissions. Rotodynamic heating can significantly reduce fossil fuel consumption across multiple stages:

• Blast furnace hot stoves
• Scrap preheating before electric arc furnaces
• Direct reduced iron (DRI) processing
• Hydrogen-based steelmaking
• Reheating furnaces

Global emissions reductions in steel alone could exceed 1 billion tons annually.

4. Aluminum Production

Aluminum manufacturing produces about 2% of global emissions due to energy-intensive calcination and melting processes. Electrification pathways include:

Near term (2025–2026)

• Holding and casting furnaces
• Reheating furnaces
• Heat treatment

Mid term (2027–2028)

• Alumina calcination electrification
• Off-gas incineration

Long term (2030+)

• Fully electrified melting systems

Climate Impact Potential

Heavy industry emissions total roughly 8–9 billion tons of CO₂ annually. Addressing 2.4 billion tons would represent one of the largest single decarbonization opportunities available.

For scale comparison, aerospace emissions benchmarks often referenced by companies such as Rolls-Royce are far smaller than industrial emissions, highlighting the outsized importance of heavy industry.

Engineering and Infrastructure Challenges

Large-scale deployment requires solving several practical issues:

• Grid capacity: Industrial installations may need 50–100 MW electrical connections.
• Infrastructure upgrades: Transmission and distribution networks must expand.
• Phased electrification: Partial conversion can begin before full grid upgrades.

These challenges are part of the broader electrification transition rather than unique limitations of the technology.

Strategic Importance for the Energy Transition

Steel, cement, chemicals, and aluminum form the foundation of modern economies. Without decarbonizing these sectors, global climate targets are unlikely to be met.

Electrified high-temperature heat represents one of the few viable pathways to deep emissions reduction in industries historically considered impossible to decarbonize. Rotodynamic technology demonstrates how established physics—applied in a new engineering context—can unlock transformative solutions at industrial scale.

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