Industrial Waste Heat Recovery System ThermoLoop Deploys Commercially: Steel Mill Exhaust Conversion Efficiency Exceeds 22%
US cleantech startup ThermoGen's ThermoLoop waste heat recovery system completes its first commercial deployment at Baosteel's Zhanjiang facility, converting 800°C+ exhaust gases to electricity at 22% efficiency.
Industrial Waste Heat Recovery System ThermoLoop Deploys Commercially: Steel Mill Exhaust Conversion Efficiency Exceeds 22%
US cleantech company ThermoGen today announced the completion of its first commercial deployment of the ThermoLoop industrial waste heat recovery system at Baosteel's Zhanjiang facility in China. The system uses thermoelectric conversion modules to directly convert high-temperature exhaust gases above 800°C from steel production into electricity, achieving 22% conversion efficiency and annual generation of approximately 12,000 MWh.
ThermoLoop's core is a novel skutterudite-based thermoelectric material with a thermoelectric figure of merit (ZT) of 2.5 in the high-temperature range—three times that of traditional bismuth telluride materials. ThermoGen CEO James Lee stated: "Industrial waste heat is the world's largest untapped energy source. China's steel industry alone wastes energy equivalent to 200 million tons of coal annually. ThermoLoop converts this waste heat into clean electricity."
Baosteel disclosed that the ThermoLoop system has a payback period of approximately 3.5 years and reduces annual CO₂ emissions by about 8,000 tons. The company plans to deploy the technology across all its steel production facilities.
According to the International Energy Agency, global industrial waste heat totals approximately 150 exajoules (EJ) annually, with over 60% unutilized. If technologies like ThermoLoop could convert 20% of this to electricity, it would represent approximately 5% of global electricity demand.
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