Today, the European Union?s steel sector is a modern industry with its main customer base found within the EU home markets, particularly in high-end segments. However, challenges remain to keep the EU steel sector both competitive at a global level and climate-neutral, in line with the European Green Deal and the CleanSteel Partnership?s vision. The scrap usage in steelmaking is a common practice to improve the process? sustainability, as it decreases the use of virgin raw materials and boosts the circularity of the sector (decreasing CO2 emissions and electivity consumption). Nevertheless, the current trend in the EU scrap market points at a slight decrease in the pre-consumer scrap and an increase in the short- and long-term of the post-consumer scrap stream, due to an increase in steel consumption. Nowadays, these ?low-quality? scrap streams are not suitable for most applications, thus limiting their use in steelmaking. In order to increase the steel scrap recycling capacity and energy efficiency, while keeping EU competitive and safe in terms of raw materials imports, energy consumption and climate change impact, innovative technologies to ?clean? the scrap before it reaches the steel furnaces need to be implemented. CAESAR gathers up steelmakers, technology developers and research centers in a joint effort to validate, at full-size industrial scale, integrated scrap upgrading, sorting and characterization technologies, thus enabling to untap volumes of low-quality scrap streams in Europe, while keeping a high-quality product and generating valorization routes for all the non-ferrous fractions obtained, towards a zero waste steel sector.

One drawback associated to Ultra High Strength Steels (UHSS) coated components is the risk of hydrogen embrittlement (HE) and delayed hydrogen fracture of the part. This problem has been tackled by developing LHE (Low HE) processes and by applying a degassing stage. The standard degassing process is applied equally to the components regardless UHSS or coating composition/morphology. However, it is known that the nature and structure of both the base material and the coating have a great influence in the hydrogen intake and degassing efficiency. Thus, there is much room for improvement if a better understanding of the underlying phenomena of electrochemically deposited corrosion protection layers of UHSS parts on hydrogen degassing is achieved. As there are no experimental techniques to measure hydrogen content or HE in a specific part of a real component at an industrial environment, modelling and simulation approaches, developed with a strong experimental base, are expected to provide the keys to process improvement. The main objective of the H2Free project is to develop a practical guideline for hydrogen degassing of UHS-steels plated with LHE-Zn-Ni, with the aim of saving production costs and allowing Zn-Ni to overtake Cd coatings. The guideline will contain simple rules/formulas to provide criteria to design the degassing process, based on experimental data and on modelling to predict the hydrogen effusion in coated UHSS, the remaining hydrogen concentration in the components and so the probability of hydrogen embrittlement. With its digital approach, H2Free will accelerate materials modelling uptake into European industrial decision making and link all partners to central European materials modelling platforms and activities. The project brings together a strong consortium composed of 4 outstanding research centres and 2 SMEs with complementary profiles and large expertise, covering the special skills, capabilities and certification expected for the project.

The main objective of the project is to develop a Smart solution for connecting process and material characteristics to achieve a new generation of digital materials in the automotive industry demonstrated by developing a new brake system with an anchor at least 12.5 % lighter and a housing with 10% improved machinability. The new developed solution will reach in next five years to the 35% of the European iron foundry market, 10% of the Worldwide level iron foundry market. A new smart data management module “DigiMAT module” will be developed by one SME specialized in ICT solutions. Its development will be supported by a sensor network and an advanced data management system already running in the iron foundry company. This smart module will consist on a specific algorithm for each digital material development combined with an automatic protocol definitions system that will conform a specific methodology. It will acquire, store, process and analyze data coming from a previously defined set of trials. . Its validation will be completed with the homologation of new digital materials by the TIER 1 company and by their introduction in the foundry company portfolio. In parallel the TIER 1 company will develop a lighter anchor based on the developed high yield material. This lighter anchor integrated into a new brake system will be functionally homologated by the TIER 1 and final user (OEM). Finally, partners will commonly develop a business plan for quick take up of the project results. Digital materials can have a wide impact in industry and society. First stage will report significant business opportunities to ICT companies and increase turnover of Tier 1 in the brake area of the automotive sector(+30%). The potential application to all type of material can render in significant global weight reduction in transport media and more sustainable development of industrial processes.

The RESLAG project proposal is aligned with the challenges outlined in the call WASTE-1-2014: Moving towards a circular economy through industrial symbiosis. In 2010, the European steel industry generated, as waste, about 21.8 Mt of steel slag. The 76 % of the slag was recycled in applications such as aggregates for construction or road materials, but these sectors were unable to absorb the total amount of produced slag. The remaining 24 % was landfilled (2.9 Mt) or self-stored (2.3 Mt). The landfilled slag represents a severe environmental problem. The main aim of RESLAG is to prove that there are industrial sectors able to make an effective use of the 2.9 Mt/y of landfilled slag, if properly supported by the right technologies. In making this prof, the RESLAG project will also prove that there are other very important environmental benefits coming from an “active” use of the slag in industrial processes, as CO2 saving (up to 970 kt/y from CSP applications, at least 71 kg/ton of produced steel from heat recovery applications), and elimination of negative impacts associated with mining (from the recovery of valuable metals and from the production of ceramic materials). To achieve this ambitious goal four large-scale demonstrations to recycle steel slag are considered: Extraction of non-ferrous high added metals; TES for heat recovery applications; TES to increase dispatchability of the CSP plant electricity; Production of innovative refractory ceramic compounds. Overall, the RESLAG project aims at an innovative organizational steel by-products management model able to reach high levels of resource and energy efficiency, which considers a cascade of upgrading processes and a life cycle perspective. All these demonstrations will be lead by the industries involved in the RESLAG consortium. The RESLAG project is supported by the main organizations representing energy-intensive industries, CSP sector, energy platforms, governments, etc.

In the European process industries large amounts of energy and resources are used to produce millions of tonnes of materials each year. Especially in metal making processes, metallic scraps from end of life goods are recycled and used as secondary raw materials in the processes. Usage of scrap is both ecologically and commercially beneficial, since it reduces the depletion of natural resources like virgin ores and avoids landfills with waste material. Today even more important is that the energy consumption and the CO2 emissions of the reduction processes of metal ores can be reduced or even totally avoided when using recycled materials as feedstock. However, the metal production facilities are facing an increasing variability in material and energy feedstock. To cope with this challenge, existing metal production plants need to be retrofitted with appropriate sensors for scrap analysis and furnace operation, to cope with the varying conditions of the feedstock regarding materials and energy. Furthermore, the selection of the optimal feedstock in terms of material and energy efficiency has to be improved by application of appropriate process control and decision support tools. Also solid scrap preheating systems can increase the energy efficiency of the melting processes. To monitor and control the process behaviour in an optimal way, model-based software tools have to be developed and applied. The main objective of the REVaMP project is to develop, adapt and apply novel retrofitting technologies to cope with the increasing variability and to ensure an efficient use of the feedstock in terms of materials and energy. This will be exemplarily demonstrated within three different use cases from the metal making industry. Due to the industrial relevance, the use cases were chosen from electric and oxygen steelmaking, aluminium refining and lead recycling. The performance of the different technologies will be assessed, and the benefits will be quantified.