Project overview

Circular economy

Flu­or­idSelekt­iv - Pro­cess de­vel­op­ment for se­lect­ive flu­or­ide sep­ar­a­tion from in­dus­tri­al pro­cess water

Pro­cess water from pig iron and steel pro­duc­tion has flu­or­ide con­tents of up to 100 mg/L. A se­lect­ive sep­ar­a­tion of the flu­or­ide is ne­ces­sary and use­ful for de­riv­a­tion or cir­cu­la­tion. If flu­or­ide re­mains in the con­cen­trate dur­ing pro­cess water de­sal­in­a­tion, it is often not us­able and can­not be dis­posed of. The meth­ods of se­lect­ive ad­sorp­tion and se­lect­ive pre­cip­it­a­tion are suit­able for ef­fect­ive flu­or­ide sep­ar­a­tion.

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ZinkAt­line - De­vel­op­ment of an at­line meas­ur­ing meth­od for rapid ana­lys­is of the total zinc con­tent in pro­cess water

The pro­cess water oc­cur­ring in steel pro­duc­tion and sur­face treat­ment (gal­van­ising) can be con­tam­in­ated with el­ev­ated zinc levels. There are also dis­cus­sions about sig­ni­fic­antly lower­ing the cur­rent dis­charge lim­its for sur­face treat­ment from 2 mg/L to 1 mg/L to 0.1 mg/L, which re­quires im­me­di­ate ac­tion in pro­cess man­age­ment and wastewa­ter treat­ment.

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Konzen­trat-Bioz­id - De­vel­op­ment of a re­li­able pro­cess for cool­ing water de­sal­in­a­tion based on mem­brane-as­sisted ca­pa­cit­ive de­ion­iz­a­tion with pro­duc­tion of mono­con­cen­trates

The legal lim­its for cool­ing and wastewa­ter dis­charge are con­tinu­ally being tightened. Water with­draw­al is in­creas­ingly lim­ited and there is a tem­por­ary water short­age. This res­ults in a po­ten­tial neg­at­ive im­pact on pro­duc­tion (cor­ro­sion, water/plant avail­ab­il­ity) in steel and iron pro­duc­tion, par­tic­u­larly in cool­ing and cast­ing pro­cesses.

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WEISS_4PN - In­teg­rat­ive ap­plic­a­tion of in­nov­a­tions and di­git­al cool­ing ca­pa­city man­age­ment to re­duce water con­sump­tion in steel pro­duc­tion – Sub-pro­ject 2: Fore­cast of op­er­a­tion­al scen­ari­os of cool­ing cir­cuits due to cli­mate-re­lated bot­tle­necks and de­term­in­a­tion of dis­turb­ing in­flu­ences when using the Ca­pa­cit­ive De­ion­iz­a­tion (MCDI)

On­go­ing cli­mate change and the as­so­ci­ated ex­treme weath­er events res­ult in in­creas­ing water stress, lead­ing to lim­ited or in­suf­fi­cient water avail­ab­il­ity. This has a neg­at­ive im­pact on pro­duc­tion pro­cesses in the steel in­dustry, e.g. in­creased cor­ro­sion in pip­ing sys­tems due to sharp in­creases in dis­solved salts (in­clud­ing chlor­ide).

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ZHyRON - Val­or­isa­tion of iron-rich & Zinc-con­tain­ing steel­mak­ing by-products via HY­dro­gen-based Re­duc­tiON

Every year, over 50 mil­lion tonnes of by-products from steel pro­duc­tion are re­cycled in the EU. How­ever, around 49 mil­lion tonnes of CO2 are emit­ted in the pro­cess and there are prob­lems with wastewa­ter dis­pos­al. In ad­di­tion, 250,000 tonnes of by-products end up in land­fill due to their high zinc con­tent. The EU has set the goal of car­bon neut­ral­ity by 2050, so the steel in­dustry needs to re­duce CO2 emis­sion by 35%. This is why the steel­mak­ing in­dustry ur­gently needs new cir­cu­lar eco­nomy solu­tions, such as those ex­plored in the ZHyRON pro­ject.

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In­di­Wa­ter - In­de­pend­ent in­dus­tri­al water sup­ply by di­git­al­iz­a­tion, sim­u­la­tion and in­nov­at­ive treat­ment tech­no­lo­gies

In­creas­ing water stress leads to lim­ited or in­suf­fi­cient avail­ab­il­ity of ground­wa­ter and river water with neg­at­ive ef­fects on pro­duc­tion pro­cesses such as con­tinu­ous cast­ing and hot rolling. There is no or only very lim­ited reuse of wastewa­ter due to strongly fluc­tu­at­ing con­tents of salts, hard­ness and or­gan­ic sub­stances in wastewa­ter from emul­sion, chem­ic­al and bio­lo­gic­al wastewa­ter treat­ment plants as well as va­cu­um treat­ment.

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TransZeroWaste - Up­grad­ing of low-qual­ity iron ores and mill scale with low car­bon tech­no­lo­gies

Con­ver­sion of the steel in­dustry from coal to H2 as a re­du­cing agent by 2030 makes it ne­ces­sary to change pro­duc­tion units. Ex­ist­ing re­cyc­ling routes via sin­ter­ing plants will be cut off, e.g. for coarse rolling and foundry scale or fine iron ore frac­tion from pel­let screen­ing. Fur­ther­more, there are no re­cyc­ling op­tions for oily fine mill scale.

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DuMiCo - Dust min­im­isa­tion and con­trol at the blast fur­nace

In­creas­ing need to use low qual­ity raw ma­ter­i­als and high­er PCI rates often lead to pro­cess in­stabil­it­ies and in­creased dust form­a­tion at the blast fur­nace (BF). At the same time there is lim­ited know­ledge of amounts, char­ac­ter­ist­ics, reas­ons and mech­an­isms of dust form­a­tion. Fur­ther­more, dust car­ries in­form­a­tion about lower BF shaft pro­cesses, but this in­form­a­tion is not used yet.

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CORNER­STONE - Com­bined tech­no­lo­gies for water, en­ergy and solute re­cov­ery from in­dus­tri­al pro­cess streams

In three case stud­ies, CORNER­STONE is fo­cus­sing on water, en­ergy, and solute re­cov­ery, tar­get­ing end-users in the steel, P&P, and chem­ic­al in­dus­tries. These in­dus­tries are cru­cial in real­iz­ing the ob­ject­ives of P4­Plan­et to trans­form European pro­cess in­dus­tries, mak­ing them cir­cu­lar and achiev­ing over­all cli­mate neut­ral­ity at the EU level by 2050, thus en­han­cing their glob­al com­pet­it­ive­ness.

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Rek­Carb 2 – Re­crys­tal­lisa­tion of Car­bon con­tain­ing Re­sid­uals to Graphene-Nano-Plate­lets

Build­ing on the pos­it­ive res­ults of the pre­de­cessor pro­ject ‘Rek­Car­b’, in which the re­crys­tal­lisa­tion of amorph­ous to highly ordered graph­it­ic car­bon was suc­cess­fully im­ple­men­ted, the tech­nic­al de­vel­op­ment of melt re­crys­tal­lisa­tion is being driv­en for­ward.

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InSGeP - In­vest­ig­a­tions of Slags from Next Gen­er­a­tion Steel Mak­ing Pro­cesses

With­in the InSGeP pro­ject five steel­works, six RTOs and two tech­no­logy sup­pli­ers in­vest­ig­ate slags res­ult­ing from next gen­er­a­tion steel­mak­ing in Europe and ex­plore the cor­res­pond­ing val­or­isa­tion op­tions.

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Min­ing­Wa­ter – Min­ing water re­cov­ery using in­nov­at­ive tech­no­lo­gies for sav­ing fresh water

Rising water de­mand due to pop­u­la­tion growth and in­dus­tri­al de­vel­op­ment is lead­ing to in­creas­ing con­flicts over the use of lim­ited water re­sources com­bined with in­ad­equate wastewa­ter treat­ment. In phos­phate min­ing, there are losses of water and valu­able ma­ter­i­als due to wastewa­ter col­lec­tion in tail­ing ponds. Pre­vi­ous solu­tions have not been tech­nic­ally or eco­nom­ic­ally suc­cess­ful due to the com­plex and vary­ing com­pos­i­tion of the wastewa­ter.

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Rek­Carb – Up­cycle of car­bon con­tain­ing re­sid­uals and by-products through re­crys­tal­lisa­tion in mol­ten metals

Viele Kohlen­stoff­haltige Rest­stoffe wer­den derzeit ther­misch ver­wer­tet oder de­poniert. Das stoff­liche Po­ten­tial bleibt of­t­mals un­gen­utzt, da es an wirtschaft­lichen Ver­fahren zur Ver­wer­tung der Rest­stoffe fehlt.

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Slagreus – Reuse of slags from in­teg­rated steel­mak­ing

In Europe about 10 Mio.t/year of BOF slag are pro­duced at the steel­mak­ing. A main part is re­used for ex­ample in road con­struc­tion. Nev­er­the­less in 2016 about 23% are land­filled or stored tem­por­ar­ily. Cur­rent dis­cus­sions on en­vir­on­ment­al as­pects are likely to im­pair the high per­cent­age of util­isa­tion in the tra­di­tion­al fields of ap­plic­a­tion for steel­mak­ing slags.

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Dyn­aWa­ter4.0 – Dy­nam­ic value cre­ation net­works through di­git­al col­lab­or­a­tion between in­dus­tri­al water man­age­ment and pro­duc­tion

Auto­ma­tion, net­work­ing and di­git­al tech­no­lo­gies are trans­form­a­tion drivers of pro­cess water treat­ment. There­fore co­ordin­a­tion of pro­duc­tion pro­cesses and pro­cess water treat­ment are ne­ces­sary. The pro­cess water treat­ment is often en­vir­on­ment­ally rel­ev­ant and con­sti­tutes a bot­tle­neck. Lack of pro­cess water fore­cast­ing tools al­lows only situ­ation­al man­age­ment of pro­cess water treat­ment.

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BioCOn­ver­sion – Biocon­ver­sion of CO/syn­gas into a plastic pre­curs­or

Pro­cess gases from the steel­works are cur­rently used thermally or are con­ver­ted into elec­tri­city CO-con­tain­ing pro­cess gases are valu­able raw ma­ter­i­al streams for the bi­o­tech­no­lo­gic­al pro­duc­tion of plat­form chem­ic­als The pro­vi­sion of mid-chain car­bon com­pounds with mul­ti­func­tion­al groups, which are cur­rently pro­duced from fossil re­sources, is of par­tic­u­lar in­terest to many in­dus­tri­al sec­tors

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SPOTVIEW – Sus­tain­able Pro­cesses and Op­tim­ized Tech­no­lo­gies for In­dus­tri­ally Ef­fi­cient Water Usage in steel, dairy or pulp and paper in­dustry

Wassere­in­satz in der Stah­lindus­trie 1980 Mio. m³ für 169 Mio. t Rohs­tahl auf­geteilt auf 75% Küh­lan­wendun­gen, 13% Gaswäsche und 12% Ma­ter­ialkondi­tionier­ung.

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HiJetRod Pilot – Re­source-ef­fi­cient hy­dromech­an­ic­al de­scal­ing sys­tem for wire coils

De­scal­ing of stain­less steel wire re­quires sev­er­al pick­ling steps with high con­sump­tion of chem­ic­als and long treat­ment time. Stain­less steel grades that are dif­fi­cult to de­scale have to be treated with up to 100 % of double pas­sages of the wire coils through the pick­ling line. In the fore­run­ner pro­ject HiJetRod a pro­cess for hy­dromech­an­ic­al de­scal­ing of wire coils has been de­veloped.

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IN­SPIRE­WA­TER – In­nov­at­ive Solu­tions in the Pro­cess In­dustry for next gen­er­a­tion Re­source Ef­fi­cient Water man­age­ment

Pro­cess re­lated in­take of scale, form­a­tion of hard­ness and salt­ing (rolling mill cool­ing water) or metals in pick­ling acids/rins­ing water avoid­ing/lim­it­ing in­tern­al reuse. High foul­ing po­ten­tial of ef­flu­ent of water treat­ment plants avoid­ing in­tern­al reuse (zero li­quid dis­charge).

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WEISS – Ef­fi­cient op­er­a­tion of cool­ing water cir­cuits by in­teg­rated de­sal­in­a­tion at the ex­ample of the steel in­dustry

Use of 2.3 bil­lion m3 / a of water across in­dus­tries for cool­ing pur­poses in Ger­many. Salt­ing due to evap­or­a­tion / cir­cu­la­tion in cool­ing cir­cuits re­quires up to 200 m³ / h of blow­down to pre­vent cor­ro­sion.

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Urb­an­Nick­el – Re­cov­ery and re­cyc­ling of nick­el from de­pos­ited neut­ral­iz­a­tion sludge of the stain­less steel in­dustry

When pick­ling stain­less steel large amounts of nick­el-con­tain­ing neut­ral­iz­a­tion sludge are pro­duced. Since 1970, ap­prox­im­ately 1.2 mil­lion tons of neut­ral­iz­a­tion sludge with ap­prox­im­ately 12,000 tons of nick­el has been de­pos­ited on the Ger­man land­fill sites. The re­cov­ery of nick­el from de­pos­ited neut­ral­iz­a­tion sludge could there­fore con­trib­ute to raw ma­ter­i­als se­cur­ity in Ger­many.

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Schwer­metall-Ad­sorber – De­vel­op­ment of an ad­sorp­tion ma­ter­i­al for se­lect­ive heavy metal re­mov­al from in­dus­tri­al pro­cess wa­ters

For the cir­cu­la­tion of pro­cess water, dis­solved heavy metals must be re­moved, e.g. From cool­ing water or wash­ing water from elec­tric fur­nace slag. Ad­sorp­tion of­fers the pos­sib­il­ity to se­lect­ively re­move heavy metals at low ini­tial con­cen­tra­tions (<1 mg / L) from high sa­line wa­ters.

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Schmelzin­jek­t2 – Re­cyc­ling of zinc-con­tain­ing fil­ter dust

Quant­ity of zinc-con­tain­ing fil­ter dust from melt­ing pro­cesses in­creases (Zn as cor­ro­sion pro­tec­tion). Up to now, re­cyc­ling solu­tion for fil­ter dust with 2 to 20 mass% of zinc is miss­ing. So far, no in­tern­al pro­cessing solu­tion has been real­ized, since long-term op­er­a­tion­al test­ing and de­term­in­a­tion of tech­nic­al-eco­nom­ic char­ac­ter­ist­ics are still pending.

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Nick­elRück – Re­cov­ery of nick­el from pro­cess wa­ters of phos­phat­ing

Pro­cesses and waste water con­tain­ing nick­el are pro­duced dur­ing the phos­phat­ing of steels. Seizure of phos­phat­ing sludge after the ad­di­tion of chem­ic­als in waste water treat­ment. Sewage must com­ply with dis­charge cri­ter­ia.

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PSP-BOF – Re­mov­al of Phos­phor­us from BOF-slag

In­creased cost for raw ma­ter­i­als and for land­filling have forced European steel­makers to look for new ways to re­cycle slag in­tern­ally in the steel plant or in ex­tern­al ap­plic­a­tions. The sig­ni­fic­ant amount of slag gen­er­ated res­ult in ser­i­ous en­vir­on­ment­al is­sues and re­source losses.

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RE­USteel – Dis­sem­in­a­tion of res­ults from European re­search pro­jects on the reuse and re­cyc­ling of by-products in the steel sec­tor

Many EU-fun­ded pro­jects on by-products reuse and re­cyc­ling have already been car­ried out in the last 15 years. There­fore an Ac­com­pa­ny­ing Meas­ure activ­ity is ne­ces­sary to eval­u­ate and ana­lys­is the large num­ber of pro­jects.

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