EEN Offer - Innovative Technologies for the Manufacturing of Steel
The company is a multinational specialty chemical producer based in Germany, which has been developing and marketing high-temperature lubricants as well as descaling agents for steel forming for more than 40 years now. They are cooperating with customers worldwide, especially in the fields of seamless tube rolling and closed-die forging.
Overall goal
The company is currently working on several projects, aiming to reduce scale (iron oxides) throughout the entire steel production process. In addition to the formation of qualitative defects on the surface, scale has an impact on sustainability of the process, as its formation reduces plant output/yield. By reducing scale formation, they support fulfillment of the “UN Sustainable Development Goals”, as well as the EUs goal of climate neutrality by 2050, to tackle climate change and its impacts.
Product description
The company has already been able to successfully reduce scale in laboratory trials and are now looking for partners in the steel industry, who are willing to test products and continue to jointly develop them together with the company. The corresponding product can be applied after secondary cooling to protect the steel while cooling down. Before the reheating furnace, it will be able to protect the steel during reheating, but its effectiveness is limited to up to 30 minutes so far. After the final processing steps, it will allow preventing further oxidation while cooling. At the moment, they are able to achieve a reduction of scale up to 80% under lab conditions.
Target Partners
The developments are more of interest for steel plants working with electric arc furnaces (EAFs) than with blast furnaces (BFs). Especially steel plants producing free-cutting steel are of particular interest, as this is a process where a lot of scale occurs. As they have achieved a reduction of scale of up to 80% with a heating period of up to 30 minutes, they believe that testing in steel mills with shorter heating rates is more promising for the time being. These are sometimes also called “Mini Mills”.
In Europe, EAF/ Mini Mill steel plants are more common in Italy and Spain. In non-European countries they are especially common in the USA.
The company is open for negotiation of various kinds of cooperation, e.g. testing technical innovations under realistic industrial field conditions in the frame of joint ventures, or within “fee for service agreements” etc, which means that the company offers payment.
