Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ReMFra (REcovering Metals and Mineral FRAction from steelmaking residues)
Période du rapport: 2024-06-01 au 2025-05-31
Each year the EU steel sector generates several million tons of metal and mineral containing residues that are currently largely under-exploited and are often sent to landfills with an enormous waste of resources that could replace virgin materials.
The ReMFra project main objective is the development and validation of highly efficient pyrometallurgic melting and reduction demonstration plant at relevant industrial scale for recovering metals and minerals contained in a wide range of steelmaking residues.The ReMFra process will allow to valorise steelmaking residues, such as filter dust, scale, sludge and slags, to obtain pig iron, iron rich oxides, a highly concentrated zinc oxide and an inert slag.
ReMFra comprises two main parts to be developed and tested at industrial scale: Plasma Reactor and RecoDust. The first will be dedicated to recover the coarse residues, while the second will focus on fine-grained dusts. The project will allow the improvement of iron yield using recovered pig iron instead of new pig iron and replacing the iron ore with the iron rich oxide. The recovery of concentrated ZnO and inert slag as by-products will provide a significant source of income and will contribute to the overall carbon neutrality.
To reach the full circularity, the process foresees the use, as reducing agent, of secondary carbon sources (i.e. waste plastics). Energy recovery solutions will also be integrated in the metal recovery process starting from enabling the use of molten pig iron.
The proposed innovation is to achieve a high recycling rate of these residues (>80%) with a metal recovery efficiency greater than 90% and a mineral recovery efficiency greater than 90%, contributing to the achievement of the European Green Deal goals, with reference to circular economy and reduction of CO2 emissions.
The ReMFra project main objective is the development and validation of highly efficient pyrometallurgic melting and reduction demonstration plant at relevant industrial scale for recovering metals and minerals contained in a wide range of steelmaking residues.The ReMFra process will allow to valorise steelmaking residues, such as filter dust, scale, sludge and slags, to obtain pig iron, iron rich oxides, a highly concentrated zinc oxide and an inert slag.
ReMFra comprises two main parts to be developed and tested at industrial scale: Plasma Reactor and RecoDust. The first will be dedicated to recover the coarse residues, while the second will focus on fine-grained dusts. The project will allow the improvement of iron yield using recovered pig iron instead of new pig iron and replacing the iron ore with the iron rich oxide. The recovery of concentrated ZnO and inert slag as by-products will provide a significant source of income and will contribute to the overall carbon neutrality.
To reach the full circularity, the process foresees the use, as reducing agent, of secondary carbon sources (i.e. waste plastics). Energy recovery solutions will also be integrated in the metal recovery process starting from enabling the use of molten pig iron.
The proposed innovation is to achieve a high recycling rate of these residues (>80%) with a metal recovery efficiency greater than 90% and a mineral recovery efficiency greater than 90%, contributing to the achievement of the European Green Deal goals, with reference to circular economy and reduction of CO2 emissions.
In Work Package 1, Dalmine ensured the overall coordination of the project while experiencing organisational changes, with Silvia Tosato replacing Fabio Praolini as Project Manager following his retirement. Management activities focused on maintaining effective governance structures, with General Assembly and Steering Committee meetings held as planned. Risk management remained an ongoing priority, particularly for the Plasma Reactor implementation phase, while intellectual property management activities continued to ensure protection and proper exploitation of innovative results. Data management followed FAIR principles under the leadership of K1-MET, with all datasets deposited on Zenodo for long-term preservation and open-access compliance.
In Work Package 2 and 3, the basic and detailed designs for the adaptation of the Tenaris Dalmine Ladle Furnace to facilitate the Plasma Reactor smelting reduction process were completely finalized. Particularly Tenova engineered a dedicated container for hot metal transport using the existing Kirov machine. The refractory lining specification was defined to ensure resistance to high temperatures and chemical attack from molten metal and slag.
Work Package 4 advanced the procurement phase under the leadership of Tenaris Dalmine, managing equipment acquisition and plant adaptation activities necessary for the Plasma Reactor demonstration.
Procurement adhered to rigorous internal procedures. Major progress included the order placement for new storage silos and weighing systems, to be installed adjacent to existing facilities without foreseen delays and detailed planning for integration during the August 2025 maintenance shutdown. Engineering revisions of the hot metal container design were implemented to mitigate risks of refractory damage during discharge, ensuring operational safety and process reliability. Feedstock preparation planning combined external hot briquetting for scale-plastic cookies with onsite cold briquetting of steelmaking residues to provide the required inputs for demonstration campaigns. Additionally, Plasma Reactor part is dealing with detailed environmental permit processes.
In Work Package 5, demo campaigns were prepared, focusing on RecoDust operations led by VAS. Plasma tests are not started (detailed action in technical report), for RecoDust various feed materials are being tested to achieve stable process performance and high-quality zinc and iron recovery, with comprehensive mass and energy balances under definition to quantify separation efficiencies. A material flow analysis was done for each trials and provides the data for the KPI´s. The main conclusions until now is that the burner has to be developed and the dezincification rate is depending on the dosing rate and the used air excess ratio.
Work Package 6 continued defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to evaluate yield, energy, environmental and economic performance of the integrated ReMFra processes. Led by K1-MET and FEHS, the team compiled metrics aligned with ISO 22400 standards to inform process optimisation and certification strategies. Parallel activities focused on assessing slag product qualities for higher-value applications such as cement production. Particularly, in Task 6.2 coordinated by FEhS, regulations and standard practices in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Spain were compiled mapping the complex regulation system. The main important KPI for RecoDust is the Specific zinc recovery efficiency (Y-05) and Zinc recovery efficiency can be increased by using a lower air excess ratio (0.8 instead of 0.9) ,higher air excess ratio needs lower specific energy consumption, a higher dosing rate leads to a higher zinc recovery efficiency.
Work Package 7 activities, began preparations for environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and techno-economic assessment of both processes, establishing inventories, data collection protocols and methodologies aligned with ISO 14040 and 14044 standard.
In Work Package 8, Task 8.1 and 8.3 has been ongoing, with three peer-reviewed papers having been published to date. Five workshops or fairs have been visited, and eight conferences have been attended as a speaker. Furthermore communication activities like newsletter or press-releases were done. Task 8.2 is successfully finished with the main results described in in D8.3.
Overall, the second reporting period achieved substantial technical progress, particularly in RecoDust demonstration plant, while Plasma Reactor is in its erection phase.
In Work Package 2 and 3, the basic and detailed designs for the adaptation of the Tenaris Dalmine Ladle Furnace to facilitate the Plasma Reactor smelting reduction process were completely finalized. Particularly Tenova engineered a dedicated container for hot metal transport using the existing Kirov machine. The refractory lining specification was defined to ensure resistance to high temperatures and chemical attack from molten metal and slag.
Work Package 4 advanced the procurement phase under the leadership of Tenaris Dalmine, managing equipment acquisition and plant adaptation activities necessary for the Plasma Reactor demonstration.
Procurement adhered to rigorous internal procedures. Major progress included the order placement for new storage silos and weighing systems, to be installed adjacent to existing facilities without foreseen delays and detailed planning for integration during the August 2025 maintenance shutdown. Engineering revisions of the hot metal container design were implemented to mitigate risks of refractory damage during discharge, ensuring operational safety and process reliability. Feedstock preparation planning combined external hot briquetting for scale-plastic cookies with onsite cold briquetting of steelmaking residues to provide the required inputs for demonstration campaigns. Additionally, Plasma Reactor part is dealing with detailed environmental permit processes.
In Work Package 5, demo campaigns were prepared, focusing on RecoDust operations led by VAS. Plasma tests are not started (detailed action in technical report), for RecoDust various feed materials are being tested to achieve stable process performance and high-quality zinc and iron recovery, with comprehensive mass and energy balances under definition to quantify separation efficiencies. A material flow analysis was done for each trials and provides the data for the KPI´s. The main conclusions until now is that the burner has to be developed and the dezincification rate is depending on the dosing rate and the used air excess ratio.
Work Package 6 continued defining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to evaluate yield, energy, environmental and economic performance of the integrated ReMFra processes. Led by K1-MET and FEHS, the team compiled metrics aligned with ISO 22400 standards to inform process optimisation and certification strategies. Parallel activities focused on assessing slag product qualities for higher-value applications such as cement production. Particularly, in Task 6.2 coordinated by FEhS, regulations and standard practices in Austria, Germany, Italy, and Spain were compiled mapping the complex regulation system. The main important KPI for RecoDust is the Specific zinc recovery efficiency (Y-05) and Zinc recovery efficiency can be increased by using a lower air excess ratio (0.8 instead of 0.9) ,higher air excess ratio needs lower specific energy consumption, a higher dosing rate leads to a higher zinc recovery efficiency.
Work Package 7 activities, began preparations for environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) and techno-economic assessment of both processes, establishing inventories, data collection protocols and methodologies aligned with ISO 14040 and 14044 standard.
In Work Package 8, Task 8.1 and 8.3 has been ongoing, with three peer-reviewed papers having been published to date. Five workshops or fairs have been visited, and eight conferences have been attended as a speaker. Furthermore communication activities like newsletter or press-releases were done. Task 8.2 is successfully finished with the main results described in in D8.3.
Overall, the second reporting period achieved substantial technical progress, particularly in RecoDust demonstration plant, while Plasma Reactor is in its erection phase.
The RecoDust process demonstrated stable operative conditions with high recovery rates for both zinc and iron from fine-grained dusts. This level of process stability and yield in industrial-like conditions exceeds previous pilot initiatives, providing a scalable solution with direct environmental and economic benefits. The specific zinc recovery efficiency is much higher than the state of the art reaching up to more than 99 % depending on the operating conditions.
The Plasma Reactor has been designed to be completely integrated in an existing steelshop. This design has the added value to demonstrate, that the process can be developed at industrial scale not only in stand-alone plants, but also in existing installations. This result sets a new benchmark for processing coarser residues (scales, sludges and slags) and increases roll out opportunities for the Plasma Reactor Technology.
The Plasma Reactor has been designed to be completely integrated in an existing steelshop. This design has the added value to demonstrate, that the process can be developed at industrial scale not only in stand-alone plants, but also in existing installations. This result sets a new benchmark for processing coarser residues (scales, sludges and slags) and increases roll out opportunities for the Plasma Reactor Technology.