Nature · 2024
Hydrogen-plasma reduction of red mud
Demonstrates fossil-free conversion of a 4-billion-tonne accumulated waste stream into iron suitable for green-steel feedstock.
Read paper →Rhein-Ruhr-Center for Sustainable Metallurgy and Critical Elements
Metals, made fossil-free.
Alloys, made from scrap.
Critical elements, recovered.
Material Simulation, unleashed.
AI, for real-world production.
Industrial challenges we solve
We partner with producers, recyclers, and downstream OEMs whose roadmaps depend on metals that are cleaner, more circular, and resilient to feedstock volatility.
Primary producers
Decarbonize metal extraction and reduction
Replace coke and natural gas with hydrogen, hydrogen plasma, ammonia, or direct electrification — for steel, nickel, copper, and other oxide feedstocks.
Recyclers
Turn complex scrap into usable alloys
Most post-consumer scrap is contaminated with tramp elements. We design composition-tolerant steels and aluminium alloys that retain mechanical and corrosion performance without expensive chemical cleaning.
Refining & waste treatment
Recover value from residues, by-products and low-grade resources
Red mud, slags, dusts and tailings reframed as urban industry mines — and closed-loop routes for rare-earth magnets, battery metals and strategic by-products from end-of-life products.
Downstream OEMs
Design sustainable functional materials
Connect chemistry, microstructure and processing to soft magnetic behaviour, hysteresis, electrical conductivity and recyclability for electrification-relevant components — and to one-step routes from mixed oxides to bulk alloys.
Other sectors & problems
Have a different industrial challenge?
If you work in another sector, or your problem does not fit one of these areas, get in touch. We can discuss the challenge and see where our research network can help.
Our expertise
The joint research network offers access to a wide range of expertise, instruments and methods. Together they build the fundamental understanding of underlying mechanisms needed to identify and overcome the most relevant hindrances to sustainable metal production.
AI & data-driven design
Turn experimental, thermodynamic and characterization data into practical alloy and process decisions, including mechanism-based modelling and integrated computational materials engineering.
Thermodynamic & kinetic simulation
Thermodynamics, kinetics, CALPHAD, phase-field modelling and crystal plasticity to screen alloys, process windows and reduction pathways before committing to experiments or pilot investment.
Micromechanics & multiphysics
DAMASK-based crystal-plasticity and multiphysics simulations for deformation, phase-transformation, thermal and damage-coupled material behaviour across process-relevant microstructures.
Pilot-scale experiments
Melting metallurgy, forming technology, pilot reactor and plasma experiments at laboratory and pilot scale, with sample preparation aligned to downstream characterization and analysis.
Advanced characterization
Atomic-scale and mesoscale characterization, including atom probe tomography, electron channelling contrast imaging, EBSD, field ion microscopy and in-operando monitoring.
Why now
Metals decide whether the energy transition arrives on time.
2×
Clean-energy mineral demand growth, 2023–2030
(IEA)
25%
EU recycling benchmark for strategic raw materials by 2030
(EU CRMA)
~80%
Lower GHG from recycled Ni, Co, Li vs. primary
(WEF / IEA)
~4 Gt
Red mud accumulated globally; ~180 Mt added per year
(Nature, 2024)
Evidence & proof points
Where the science stands.
Selected peer-reviewed, policy and institutional references that anchor the methods we deploy with industrial partners.
Nature · 2024
One-step oxides-to-bulk alloys
Solid-state H₂-based co-reduction and compaction merges extraction, alloying and thermomechanical processing into one operation.
Read paper →ACS Chemical Reviews
Materials science of sustainable metals
Frames sustainable metals as a fundamental materials-science challenge spanning primary, secondary and tertiary sources.
Read paper →Start a conversation
Bring us a materials challenge.
Confidential, NDA-friendly scoping calls. We listen first, then suggest the smallest engagement that can answer your question with technical confidence.