Project description
New technology to improve metals' recycling
Metals can be recycled over and over again without loss of their properties. This is not only good news for the circular economy, it’s also big business. The global metal recycling industry (estimated at EUR 250 billion) is growing at an unprecedented rate and the opportunities are boundless. To meet growing demands, Europe’s metal production plants need to be retrofitted with appropriate sensors for scrap analysis and furnace operation. The EU-funded REVaMP project will develop, adapt and apply new retrofitting technologies to address the increasing variability in feedstock. The project’s findings will improve the selection of feedstock in terms of material and energy efficiency. The project will use new process control and decision support tools. Model-based software tools will also be developed.
Objective
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.
Fields of science
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processesrecycling
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftware
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistrypost-transition metals
- engineering and technologyelectrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineeringelectronic engineeringsensors
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
40237 Dusseldorf
Germany