Project description
Recycled alloys for future green metallurgy
The EU has set in place the ambitious goal of becoming the first climate neutral continent by 2050. To achieve it, there has been a push towards a circular economy. Presenting a key challenge to achieving this is metal recycling, and in particular alloys produced from scrap metal, where impurities accumulate. Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the ROAD-SiM project aims to contribute to the development of recycling-oriented alloys. To that end, it will analyse the impact of compositional changes and impurities on the mechanical properties changes and damage-tolerance of concentrated solid solution alloys, leading to the development of scrap-compatible alloys for sustainable metallurgy.
Objective
European industry increasingly focusses on recycling, pushing towards circular economy as part of EU Green deal. This offers enormous energy savings and CO2 reductions. However, there are several problems hindering the metals recycling.
Effective solution to counter these problems is the development of new alloys, recycling-friendly by design.
One of the rising problems during recycling, is the progressive accumulation of impurities in alloys produced from scrap
metal. Elements such as tin cannot be effectively removed during manufacturing alloys from scrap. Therefore, the next
generation of alloys will have be able to tolerate more impurities (therefore inclusions) than current alloys. Such materials
also have to be more resistant to fracture, due to the potential damage nucleation at inclusions. However, impurities cause
significant changes of properties and induce considerable complexity even in simple alloy systems. Therefore, the
development of the recycling-oriented alloys based on understanding of changes caused by various compositional
deviations require a significant volume of research.
Concentrated solid solution alloys, including some of the established compositions of austenitic steels have the attributes
essential for recycling-oriented alloys. They show enhanced tolerance to compositional deviations due to the extended
compositional space with desired microstructures. and intrinsically high ductility levels.
In this project, we first aim to analyze the consequences of the compositional changes and impurities to the changes of
mechanical properties and damage-tolerance of said materials. Ultimately, scrap-compatible alloys for sustainable
metallurgy will be prepared. Special attention will be placed on the effects of the elemental partitioning and their interactions
with defects. The project outcomes will contribute to the development of recycling-oriented alloys on the global level, for future green metallurgy with reduced environmental impact.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-AG-UN - HORIZON Unit GrantCoordinator
8700 Leoben
Austria