Manuel Bailera, a prominent Ramón y Cajal researcher at the ECO2Lab research group, has been awarded a prestigious Leonardo Grant by the BBVA Foundation.
The €50000 grant will fund his highly innovative project, DEIAT, over the next 18 months. Hosted at ECO2Lab, within the Aragon Institute for Engineering Research (I3A), the research aims to tackle a massive global environmental challenge: decarbonizing the steel industry, which is currently responsible for 7% to 9% of global CO2 emissions.
ECO2Lab to Host a World-First Experimental Facility
Because global scrap metal supplies are limited, traditional blast furnaces remain the dominant method for manufacturing steel worldwide. To lower carbon footprints, the industry urgently needs to replace coal and coke with alternative reducing gases like hydrogen. However, a major technical hurdle remains: engineers worry that hydrogen might react prematurely with oxygen inside the furnace, destroying its thermal efficiency.
To solve this critical unknown, the DEIAT project will adapt a specialized entrained-flow reactor facility at ECO2Lab’s labs in the University of Zaragoza. Capable of replicating the extreme conditions of blast furnace tuyeres (nozzles) reaching scorching temperatures between 1800°C and 2200°C under 5 bars of pressure, this will become the only experimental facility in the world capable of validating these specific conditions.
Bailera and the ECO2Lab team will execute a campaign of 32 tests using biochar (a renewable solid fuel) alongside hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The goal is to prove that renewable fuels can be burned in these atmospheres without the gases competing for available oxygen, paving the way for true eco-friendly steel manufacturing.
Consolidating ECO2Lab’s Scientific Leadership
This award further cements ECO2Lab’s position as a leading national and international reference in climate change mitigation technologies. The group’s core expertise focuses on the utilization of renewable energies, thermochemical energy storage, and advancing the processes of CO2 reduction, capture, transport, and utilization.
Dr. Bailera’s exceptional track record embodies the group’s high-impact research. A former Marie Curie Fellow, he has been featured two years in a row (2024 and 2025) on Stanford University’s prestigious “World’s Top 2% Scientists” list and has previously won the Aragón Investiga and Tercer Milenio youth research awards.
About the Leonardo Grants
The BBVA Foundation’s Leonardo Grants support highly competitive, innovative individual projects led by researchers who are at a decisive mid-career stage. Out of a staggering 1,896 applications across Spain for this edition, only 59 projects were selected—marking a highly exclusive 3.1% success rate.
With this grant, ECO2Lab not only answers a direct technological demand from the industrial sector but also strengthens its footprint within the “Leonardo Network,” an elite community of 800 top-tier researchers and creators across Spain
