CircSmeltSteel: Low carbon and circular valorisation of secondary materials in electric furnaces for proving high quality steelmaking with excellent product properties

07/01/2026 – 06/30/2030

Research area Work and Participation in Europe and Regions | Dr. Michael Kohlgrüber| Adrian Götting | Mathias Cuypers

The overarching objective of CircSmeltSteel is to develop and validate, within a system-level approach, new pathways for circular and low-CO₂ iron and steel production. The project focuses on the use of metallurgical by-products as secondary raw materials in electric smelting aggregates, thereby contributing to improved material circularity in the steel industry.

Projekt Funding

EU Horizon Europe

Project description

The project CircSmeltSteel validates the use of metallurgical by-products as secondary sources in low carbon iron and steelmaking and clarifies the impact of steel quality on product properties meeting EU objectives on net zero manufacturing, sustainability, and competitiveness (Net-Zero Industry Act, Clean Industrial Deal, Steel and Metals Action Plan). The entire steelmaking chain is covered with upstream (primary/secondary metallurgy, casting) and downstream (hot and cold rolling/annealing). Two low-CO2 routes are considered with a system-level approach using by-products as secondary feedstock: the Electric Smelting Furnace (ESF, also called Smelter or Submerged Arc Furnace) and the Electric Arc Furnace (EAF), both at pilot and industrial scales. The steel produced will be evaluated under higher tramp element levels (nitrogen, phosphorous, sulphur, copper, molybdenum, tin), addressing the EU’s zero defects goal using mechanical testing (e.g., Gleeble, dilatometry). CircSmeltSteel is in line with the EU’s zero waste goal and industrial symbiosis, as ESF/EAF slags will be qualified as raw materials for other sectors. A skills development strategy including the Industry 5.0 paradigm will foster societal readiness for using low-quality materials in existing and new low-carbon steelmaking technologies. All data and models derived are integrated into a digital platform serving as an excellent data management strategy for R&D projects in the steel industry. An excellent consortium combines know-how in metallurgy, plant technology, process automation, and circularity with highly skilled scientific partners. CircSmeltSteel will raise awareness of the necessity of handling low-quality by-products for green hot metal and steel production and their scale-up to enable a resource-efficient, competitive economy. Business potential is enormous with ~80Mt annual by-product recycling (for ESF and EAF routes) and the capability to replace the sinter-BF route in integrated plan.

Cooperation partner

Project goals

The overarching objective of CircSmeltSteel is to validate innovative, low-CO₂ iron and steelmaking routes that enable the use of high shares of secondary raw materials while maintaining consistently high steel quality.

The key sub-objectives of the project are summarized below:

To test at least six different by-product streams during the project.
To investigate by-product shares of up to 50 % in the ESF feed material.
To investigate by-product shares of up to 20 % in the EAF feed material.
To develop at least three suitable agglomerate recipes for both ESF and EAF applications.
To achieve a direct CO₂ reduction of more than 80 % for the ESF compared with the blast furnace reference route.
To investigate the use of up to 100 % secondary carbon carriers in both the ESF and EAF.
To achieve a 25 % reduction in direct CO₂ emissions and a 25 % reduction in fossil energy consumption in the EAF through the use of biocarbon as a slag foaming agent.
To analyze the properties of ESF, EAF, and secondary metallurgy slags and assess their potential for material valorization, for example in the cement or construction industries.
To quantify the behavior of the six relevant residual and tramp elements N, P, S, Cu, Mo, and Sn along the process chain.
To evaluate the quality of two steel grades, namely structural steel and microalloyed steel.
To develop reduced-order models for Level 2 automation of downstream processes and demonstrate them at laboratory scale.
To establish a digital platform for data acquisition, data management, model implementation, and model utilization, and to make it accessible to the project partners after 14 months.
To conduct a technical, environmental, and economic assessment of the investigated process routes using LCA, LCC, material and energy balances, and business case analyses.
To develop a skills development strategy for circular and low-CO2 steelmaking

Methodological approach

CircSmeltSteel covers current routes (scrap-EAF) and new breakthrough technologies (ESF coupled with EAF) for low-CO2 steelmaking, including SecMet (LF, RH), casting, and downstream (hot-/ cold-rolling, annealing). For low-CO2 ironmaking, the ESF is one excellent promising link between the exploitation of low-quality Fe carriers and high-quality steelmaking with excellent properties allowing higher contaminant levels by adapted SecMet operations. Additionally, the ESF is perfectly compatible with existing BOF plants (HM processing into crude steel using existing BOFs) and represents a new technology helping integrated steelmakers to drastically reduce their Scope 1 CO2. This is another important fact, why CircSmeltSteel is required now to reach the next level of decarbonization.