Leadership
Professor Dierk Raabe
Max Planck Institute for Sustainable Materials, Dusseldorf, Germany
Co-lead
Professor Hauke Springer
Faculty of Engineering, University Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Motivation
Metals enable society; their production must transform
Metallic materials enable infrastructure, energy conversion, transportation, electrification, communication, medicine, and artificial intelligence. Their production, from steels and lightweight alloys to magnetic and battery materials, remains one of the major challenges to a sustainable future. Large amounts of fossil resources and electrical energy accelerate global warming, while mining and processing of ores cause severe environmental impacts and hazardous waste.
Each metallic material results from interdependent production chains. Replacing blast furnaces with hydrogen direct reduction or moving toward circular scrap usage only succeeds when downstream processes adapt, when quality losses from recycling are addressed, and when new business models accompany technical change.
The Rhein Ruhr Center on Sustainable Metallurgy tackles these systemic challenges by linking scientific insight with industrial implementation and turning pioneering ideas into practical solutions.
Our Approach
Rooted in the Rhine-Ruhr innovation corridor
Located in Germany's industrial heartland, the Center maintains strong ties with universities, research institutes, and industrial partners. Its members cover the entire cradle-to-grave lifecycle, from mining and production to processing, use, and recycling, to transform breakthroughs into viable business cases focused on sustainability, critical materials, recycling, waste treatment, structural alloys, functional materials, and novel high-tech materials.
Focus areas
Sustainable materials
Critical raw materials, scarcity mitigation, and low-impact metallurgy.
Circular production
Recycling routes, waste treatment strategies, and circular economy enablers.
Advanced alloys
Structural, functional, and novel high-tech alloys tailored for future use.
AI & operations
Production-oriented artificial intelligence and data-driven process control.
What we do
Bridging rapid improvement and disruptive innovation
With its integrated approach, the Center accelerates improvements of existing technologies and enables disruptive ideas such as plasma metallurgy, novel reductants, lean alloys, production-oriented AI methods, and high-value recycling routes.
Objectives and services
From insight to industrial impact
Holistic insight
- Cover the entire production chain from alloy design to interconnected processing steps.
- Use advanced characterization and simulation to understand limiting mechanisms.
- Link metal economies with polymers, concrete, and related material systems.
Scalable delivery
- Combine experimental and computational models to assess scalability from lab to industry.
- Apply practical AI methods to metallurgical production and development.
- Develop lean alloys, waste treatment strategies, and high-performance alloys from recycling.
People and access
- Provide joint supervision of projects and PhD theses between partner institutions.
- Offer access to skilled scientists and engineers, including recruitment support.
- Connect with industry partners to form tailored innovation teams.
Access to joint resources
Shared infrastructure, simulation, and expertise
The network provides laboratory-scale metallurgical reactors, advanced characterization, simulation and AI capabilities, raw materials preparation, reactor design up to pilot scale, and downstream processes, including links into hydro-metallurgy.
Cooperation agreements between the universities and the Max Planck Institute enable efficient exchange, joint supervision, and mutual access to complementary facilities. Industrial partners benefit from joint development projects, while the academic community strengthens teaching and graduate training through the MPRS SusMat program.
Contact
Start a conversation
For collaborations, joint research, or general questions, please use our shared contact channels below.
Email: contact@rrcsm.org
Telephone: +49 (0)211 1234 567
Impressum
Rhein Ruhr Center on Sustainable Metallurgy
Responsible according to Section 5 TMG
Prof. Dierk Raabe
Max-Planck-Institut fuer nachhaltige Materialien
Kaiserstrasse 12, 40237 Dusseldorf, Germany
Co-responsible institution
Prof. Hauke Springer
Universitaet Duisburg-Essen, Fakultaet fuer Ingenieurwissenschaften
Lotharstrasse 1, 47057 Duisburg, Germany
Contact
Telephone: +49 (0)211 1234 567
Email: contact@rrcsm.org
Editorial responsibility
Rhein Ruhr Center on Sustainable Metallurgy
www.rhein-ruhr-center-sustainable-metallurgy.org