The 3rd Smelting Symposium took place recently on 29-30 September in Aachen, organized by the Department for Industrial Furnaces and Heat Engineering (IOB) at RWTH Aachen University.

The symposium will be used to present the current status of research & development and plant technology for electric smelting furnaces (ESF, including SAF and OSBF) and to discuss the future tasks and challenges of the industries (ferroalloys, steelmaking, recycling, etc.). To this end, specialist lectures from science and industry will be presented and discussions held.

Hamideh Hassanpour gave a presentation titled “Advances in Plasma and Arc Modelling within the PlasmArc4Green Initiative“. She showcased recent advances in the COMET Module “PlasmArc4Green“, including the first successful CFD/MHD simulations of an electric smelting furnace with immersed electrodes, marking an important step toward deeper process understanding and optimization.

As part of the “CircSmeltSteel – Integration of Complex Metallurgical By-Products in Electric Smelting Furnace Operation” project Alexander Halwax presented the Process Strategy and Target Outcomes. 
He outlined a systematic approach to the low-CO₂ valorisation of metallurgical by-products via the Electric Smelting Furnace (ESF) route. The project covers the full steelmaking chain, from agglomeration to pilot ESF trials and dynamic process modelling. The aim is to advance the ESF by-product route from TRL 4 to TRL 6. Another focus is to close key knowledge gaps regarding slag electrical conductivity and stable operating windows. The project investigates by-product shares of up to 50 wt.-%.