Kraftblock

Kraftblock is a German thermal-storage technology company founded in 2014 in Saarbrucken by chemist Martin Schichtel and economist Susanne Konig, with headquarters in Sulzbach, Saarland. It was created to help energy-intensive industries replace fossil-fuel process heat with stored renewable or waste-heat energy.

Its Thermal Energy Storage system charges from renewable electricity, concentrated solar or industrial waste heat, stores the energy in a material made from up to 85 percent upcycled steel slag bound with a phosphate binder, and discharges heat at temperatures between 350 and 1,300 degrees Celsius. Customers span steel, chemical, food and energy companies, including a system operating at Tata Steel’s Jamshedpur works in India.

1. High-temperature range: Delivers steam, hot air or thermal oil at 350-1,300 degrees Celsius.

2. Upcycled material: Storage medium uses up to 85% recycled steel slag with a phosphate binder.

3. Round-trip efficiency: The system reports over 95% round-trip thermal efficiency.

4. Cycle durability: Tested for 15,000 charge-discharge cycles without degradation.

5. Fast charging: Storage material charges roughly ten times faster than conventional refractory bricks.

6. Proven deployment: A unit at Tata Steel's Jamshedpur plant has run reliably for a year, cutting about 22,000 tonnes of CO2 annually.