Resource efficient metal production from a clean industry
Metal production_main tekst
Metal Production is an interdisciplinary Centre for Research-based Innovation (SFI). During the next decades, the Norwegian metal industry will need to achieve even higher-quality output with more efficient use of resources and energy.
The main goal of Metal Production is to enable industrial innovation and give the industry long term access to world class fundamental competence and candidates. This will enable the industry to maintain its position at the forefront of sustainable innovation.
25 March, 2021 - The Annual Report for 2020 is now available. The report describes important results from the centre research domains, as well as other major achievments from last year.
We received several pictures to the front page photo contest. Thank you to all who contributed! The picture that was chosen for the front page is taken by Shahid Akhtar (Hydro), and it shows PhD candidate Cathrine Kyung Won Solem collecting dross samples at Hydro Karmøy. The report is available here.
22 March, 2021 - The MOLTEN 2021 Conference was organized February 21-25. Several SFI Metal Production members contributed with presentatations at the conference. MOLTEN 2021 was a virtuel event and all presentations had to be recorded and made available at the virtual conference platform. SINTEF researcher Vincent Canaguier's presentation turned out to be one of the top 5 most viewed presentations! The title of his presentation was Foaming during silicomanganese reduction.
The organizer writes that Vincent's enthusiastic presentation helped to make the event a great success! A prize (USD 100) will be transferred to the winner. Congratulations to Vincent!
16 March, 2021 - Attila Kovacs has successfully defended his thesis for Doctor of Philosophy at Oxford University. Attila has been working on fundamental mathematical modelling of alumina dissolution. Highlights from his work involve the identification of characteristic time scales for the freezing-melting-dissolution process as well as determining under which conditions alumina rafts may form. The supervision of Attila has been a successful joint venture between scholars at Oxford and NTNU as well as key researchers in Hydro and NORCE.
15 March, 2021 - The Horizon 2020-project SisAl Pilot is coordinated by SFI Metal Production Professor Gabriella Tranell. The project is an innovative pilot for Silicon production with low environmental impact using secondary Aluminium and silicon raw materials. A new video gives information about the innovative pilot. Enjoy watching the video available on the project website.
11 March, 2021 - The SFI centre funding period is coming to an end in the beginning of 2023. It is important to start the in-depth discussions on how to ensure that the good results and strong research groups are maintained and prolonged. Our ambition is to develop a new SFI project based on the strong fundament of SFI Metal Production. March 2nd we organized a strategy seminar for the SFI Management team on this topic. Read more here.
12 January, 2021 - SINTEF and NTNU are partners in a newly awarded EU financed project called HARARE. The project will demonstrate sustainable pathways to produce metals using hydrogen as an enabler. The project will eliminate waste from the metallurgical industry while recovering valuable materials. Read more about the new project here.
Sustainability Award to Tranell and Jafarian
09 January, 2021 - The Faculty of Natural sciences at NTNU has awarded employees and students with outstanding achievements in 2020. This week Gabriella Tranell and Jafar Safarian at SFI Metal Production received The Sustainability award for their invention of the SisAl process, a process where silicon is produced with low environmental impact using secondary Aluminium and silicon raw materials.
Silicon is an critical element for Europe, and has – among other things - importance for green-tech industries. The new process is far more environmentally and economically sustainable than the traditional process, and the industry is interested in using it.
08 January, 2021 - In 2019, it was estimated that only about 5 % of lithium-ion batteries were recycled. The market for lithium-ion batteries is expected to grow tenfold the coming decade, mostly driven by the growth in the number of electrical vehicles. The low recycling rate and the high growth demonstrates the need for increased focus on recycling and improved recycling technologies. A team of scientists from SINTEF will the coming year be working on innovative solutions for recycling of batteries. Their new ideas spring from their wide experience in recycling of metals and molten salt electrochemistry. SINTEF is financing the project so that new inventions can be patented by SINTEF. Anne Kvithyll, Research Domain leader in SFI Metal Production, is the contact person to this project.
Role of silicon (SiC) in silicon/ferro silicon (Si/FeSi)
15 December, 2020 - The demand for high quality silicon is rapidly increasing in the solar cell industry and for production of photovoltaic applications. To meet this demand, the industrial production of silicon must be made more effective. An extensive knowledge of the role of silicon carbide in the silicon production process is vital. Read more about this in Sethulakshmy Jayakumari's (SFI Metal Production) blog at NTNU TechZone.
