As the necessity toward climate neutrality becomes of paramount importance, increasing energy efficiency and minimizing industrial waste are critical priorities. A significant portion of industrial energy—particularly in high-temperature processes such as ceramics, metallurgy, and aluminium production—is still lost as waste heat. Capturing and reusing this heat represents an enormous opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, enhance resource efficiency, and lower operational costs across a wide range of sectors.
The REDTHERM project was developed in response to this challenge, aiming to demonstrate an innovative approach to thermal energy storage (TES) using red mud (RM)—a common, energy-intensive industrial by-product of the aluminium industry. REDTHERM sought to combine sustainable material valorization with advanced system engineering to deliver a new generation of hybrid waste heat recovery (WHR) units. The ambition was to transform red mud from a costly waste stream into a core component of a scalable energy storage system.
The core objective of REDTHERM was to develop and validate, at laboratory scale, a real Waste Heat Recovery-Thermal Energy Storage unit based on Red Mud-derived phase change materials (PCM). This system was designed to work under industrially relevant conditions, bridging the gap between early research and full-scale deployment. Beyond material development, the project emphasized intelligent design, modeling, and optimization—leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to simulate performance, improve efficiency, and guide industrial scale-up.
A central innovation of the project was its dual-tank hybrid TES configuration, capable of operating in both parallel and serial modes, offering unprecedented flexibility in capturing and releasing thermal energy. Furthermore, the system used a stratified cascade of PCMs with different melting points, maximizing thermal storage density across a broad temperature range.
REDTHERM’s approach reflects European strategies in energy transition, digital transformation, circular economy, and industrial competitiveness. Its outputs—spanning advanced materials, prototype hardware, and intelligent design tools—are intended to contribute directly to EU goals related to decarbonization, resource efficiency, and sustainable reindustrialization, with specific alignment to the European Green Deal, Industry 5.0 and Circular Economy Action Plan.
