PURESCRAP

Purity improvement of scrap metal (PURESCRAP) aims to increase the use of low-quality scrap grades (post-consumer scrap) by deploying and applying best available technologies to reduce impurities. This is achieved through novel sensor combinations and analysis supported by artificial intelligence. A key part is the connection between scrap sorter and the steel industry which are the consumers of the scrap. This ensures that there is a demand for the enhanced purification and valorisation methods. The steel industry also enables the industrial scale verification of the PURESCRAP methods, where sorted scrap is used for steelmaking in semi-industrial and industrial scale.

Project

The shredding process is identified as the most promising method leading to impurity liberation and later removal, for which the site of the Swedish scrap supplier STENA is chosen for demonstration. With a better analysis of the scrap material after the sorting and preparation chain, appropriate material handling can be optimised for desired outputs. During the project, sensor stations will be integrated in the two separate processing chains for heavy (cut) and shredded scrap. The proposed innovation of PURESCRAP has the ambition to go far beyond industrial state-of-the-art to achieve a higher recycling rate of post-consumer scrap (increased share of low-quality scrap over the total scrap input by at least 40% or more) compared to the usual practice for a specific steel quality, whereas realistic grades are e.g. rail steel R260 (1.0623; EN13674) and engineering steel 42CrMo4 (1.7225; DIN EN10083). This clearly contributes to the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA ) of the Clean Steel Partnership, and to the achievement of the European Green Deal goals regarding circular economy as well as to the reduction of CO2 emissions. The outstanding performance of the proposed PURESCRAP sensor stations will be demonstrated through the implementation at industrial scale at a scrap supplier site.

Project partners

INDUSTRY PARTNERS
Scrap recycling: Stena Recycling AB
End user: SSAB EMEA AB, voestalpine Stahl Donawitz GmbH   
Sensor technology: BT-Wolfgang Binder GmbH, SPECTRAL Industries BV 
Process control: DANIELI AUTOMATION SPA

SCIENTIFIC PARTNERS
Research organisations: SWERIM AB, K1-MET GmbH, ESTEP
Universities: Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Luleå tekniska universitet, TU Dortmund

European Commission

Project website