welcome to all today's pioneers talk how crafted scrap improves the steel quality and reduces co2 emissions my name is christoph stangl i'm marketing manager at primetals technologies and i will be today's moderator well with me are two experts on the one hand it's andreas melcher he is product life cycle manager for scrap yard automation at primetals technologies welcome andreas so it's my pleasure to be here with you and our audience today hello hey perfect and my the second expert is heiner guschall he is ceo of sicon germany heiner glad to have you here thanks for the chance to be here it's a great pleasure perfect and i think we have a great audience as well today i've seen that the interest in the fulfillment of this talk was like massive i hope a lot of people are also live now at this moment so with the next about 45 minutes andreas heiner and myself will discuss how crafted scrap enables the production of high quality steel as well as reduces co2 emissions in your steel factory how you can convert conventional scrap into crafted scrap and also how essential the automation of production processes and the logistics in steel factories so anytime you have questions you would like to ask one of our two experts please just add a comment to this live stream as if you're used to it if you would just uh put a comment on the social media post later on during this live streamed interview i will just read out some of your questions and ask it to our two experts so this is a pioneer's talk interview so let's start pioneering now um cycle is a specialist in the processing analysis and sorting of scrap on the one hand and prometheus technologies is among a lot of other things of course this specialist in the identification and automation of production processes and logistics or the interpretation of optical identification of scrap so most likely both of the companies have already assisted a lot of steel producers to pimp up their scrap yards but before we're going to discuss about the specific solutions and how this works in detail step by step i would like to go one step back and just ask or discuss with you what is to nowadays the conventional way how stupid you should typically handle scrap uh and maybe you can just share a bit of your experience uh with us maybe behind you we would like to start thank you scrap is always fashionable but there's a lot of room for improvement and that's what we are talking today about and scrap is traded based on specifications like from esri bir and these specifications give general guidelines on ferrous content on copper content but they're very general and they leave a lot of room for interpretations for discussions between steel maker and scrap supplier i've here for you two photos one shows typical hms scrap and you see a high content of impurities maybe this is a bit worst case but still reality a lot of steel producers are receiving scrap like this and at this point we would like uh to improve the scrap so that seal makers have less problems and the other slide shows typical shredded scrap and there we see copper impurities and these copper impurities make in a lot of cases the use of this scrap especially for flexi producers to a problem because of the inconsistency of this copper content and there we want to supply and show solutions very interesting uh thanks senator for bringing these pictures with us i think this perfectly illustrates the relation state of the art or reality so andrea's to your experience regarding like the automation of production and logistics what is like there that like standard way how simple you should usually do this nowadays yeah usually uh depending on the steel line you want to produce a recipe for the scrap is sent to the scrap yard and then according to this recipe a scrap mix is prepared which is then sent to your melting unit but of course as hand already explained you have to trust that actually the script you are loading is according to the specification which many times it is not i see okay and scrap consumers are basing their scrap mix on a worst case in order to prevent any production risk okay okay so this then means that this uh this actually weight handle scap is let's say sub-optimum then to put it that way or at least we would say there's a lot of room for optimization and so we have seen now that uh obviously like unsorted on and can convenient strap is maybe very often the case of the standard and and standard recipes and that very often z producers operate on the worst case scenarios so what are they not drawbacks when you just follow this kind of policy or philosophy maybe you want to start again drawback is that the energy energy consumption is higher than it should be even the best furnace producer primetals cannot produce steel from from dirt and so far we would like to remove everything what is not contributing to a high liquid yield before the furnace so steel making starts on the scrap yard on the other hand we also want to separate unwanted impurities like copper lead tin from the feedstock before it enters into the furnace and that means that scrap needs to be processed so that it doesn't look like on the two pictures which we showed at the beginning okay very good what about you yeah the problem is is heinous hater that actually the impurities aren't desired to have in the in the scrap mixer and nowadays there are possibilities but there is a quite low effort to track the quality of the script that is really charged into the melting unit sir and this is why usually steel makers depend then on the experience of of their operating stuff which of course you bring in the human factor they don't act in the same way each day sometimes because of manifold reasons uh the result of this is different and you uh therefore you are getting different results after tapping off your melting unit we want to make the use of scrap independent from your human era yeah yeah that's the goal yeah and this is kind of necessary to to have this steady very high quality insured and otherwise you have like two high fluctuations also on the end products depends on the quality of steel which is produced especially integrated plants flexi producers are moving have a strong move in the direction of the use of more scrap and they are very sensitive to impurities especially copper tin and this is something where we have to act and to show solutions uh to make the increased use of scrap for flexi production happen for long c production it's not so sensitive but nevertheless they have the problem of energy efficiency and energy costs are rising all over the world significantly so that we can optimize this as well yeah so in other words so we have to produce or to to make the ingredients better to a greater that is required by the steel grade you want to produce at the end so if you compare the steel making routes like today high quality flat steels which are made in in converter plants there's only a scrap mix used to an extent of approximately 25 maximums 30 percent and you can dilute this by using the rest of 80 of virgin material so it is not essential let's say so essential like in an electric arc furnace where you go up to maybe 100 of of scrap charger and where uh impurities are then included in a much higher volume than compared uh to a converter yeah very good and we are in the transition period of the steel industry heading towards co2 neutrality and the use of scrap for sure we will discuss this later the use of scrap is the fastest way to achieve this very interesting point so uh um this is a i think a good good point maybe to just welcome also our uh possibly uh uh uh recently connected participants um what comes out of this pioneer's talk with the title how crafted scrap can improve sea quality and reduces due to we have just started to discuss let's say the challenges uh around this topic today with me is andreas meike from primetime's technologies as well as hannah guschot from second in in germany if you have any questions at any time please just input them as comments to this live stream i've seen there are some comments already in the queue so please add them later on i will read some of your comments out as questions to our experts and you will get an immediate answer if you not succeed to answer all the questions during this live stream i will make sure that i will connect to later on after the live stream with our experts so that hopefully we'll get an answer in any case so please keep on inputting your questions as comments so we have started to discuss the challenges when handling scrap which is maybe polluted and when automation is missing and maybe the production is too much dependent depending on the human factor or um actually varying to too much so there is now specifically space for improvement to your experience maybe you want to start yeah okay so from automation point of view of course there are comprehensive solutions to make your logistic chain automatic automation supported that starts from the delivery of the script followed by unloading preparation or pre-preparation of the scrap preparation of the scrap mixer and the transport of the script and then to the melting unit and tracking each single batch of scrap that is going to be charged into your melting unit plus there are intelligent sensors and technological packages that can support to identify actually the type of scrap that is charged or delivered it even gives the the opportunity to remove unwanted and dangerous ingredients from the scrap mixer and at the end you can close the complete logistic circle and know up to 100 percent uh what you are feeding your your melting unit so uh if you know your your ingredients you can be quite sure about the result you get out of the furnace and so this means their automation gives a significant advantage compared to only like experience stored in human brains definitely it's not only a question of of the experience because as mentioned before you never can be 100 sure what kind of impurities you have in the scrape if you do not check for roughly to find them so you have to trust actually that the scrap mixer is according to the recipe but uh you cannot be 100 sure if you do not put additional effort into uh into the game to find out what kind of script you're really using very good so whether you see a specific room for improvement to your experience basically what andrea said that's the point where we are coming in scrap is today not a certified or quality proven product it can change depending on the market situation there can be higher impurities or less impurities that's difficult for steel plants to anticipate this but they have problems with this and and so far we want to make the utilization of scrap transparent and transparent means that we have one step of pre-processing preferably within a steel plant and this pre-processing means that we take out all unwanted impurities which are already liberated and the next step is then to know exactly the chemical composition so first step we have prepared a short video which shows our hms cleaning to convert this ugly hms crab which we saw on the picture at the beginning into a quality scrap and here you see a unit the scrap is fed to a pen feeder for a proper dosing to a so-called hms screen inclined and acceleration of material and then magnetic separation so that liberated non-ferrous metals stones fines oxides are dropping down everything what is the ferrous separated from the from the residue so that nothing is lost but by this we can increase the liquid yield by 6 to 10 percent which is a significant amount and furthermore we can add steps together with prime metals so that the shear scrap is further optical controlled and that further unwanted impurities are separated so that we get a quality product from the low quality hms which we saw before there we go very impressive to see like this big like mountain of dirt which came out yes that's indeed impressive and when you consider that this material went before uh to the furnace yeah and increased just the amount of slag and cost energy yeah so is this let's say you say it's really like standard it was like kind of worst case scenario you just showed now in this video um it's a bit strange steel producers who have such units in operation are wondering why they didn't do it before okay those who don't have it often say we don't have such a scrap but when you look on the scrap yard you don't see a big difference so that's what i said at the beginning there is potential just by pre-processing by analyzing the scrap quality becomes transparent um and then you really see what you got very very interesting so there is not your space for improvement uh like from your like automation view on the topic yeah uh okay maybe one important aspect i want to add uh increasing this lag for for many steel producers is a challenger because the disposal of slager in many cases is not free of charge so you have to pay for it so if you take all the dirt out before and you can decrease the amount of slag of course your production will become cheaper and that's uh of course another benefit of cleaning the scrap before you charge it into into a melting unit and uh yeah so uh what we are having uh on on solutions uh uh i prepared some slides to to show it to you uh the first slide that will be shown now is uh an optical solution for the identification and uh classification of scrap so you can see here actually a scrap tube in top view on its way uh to a steel making plant and uh our technological package is here used to verify that the charging recipe and loading instructions are obeyed by the by the staff and to be sure that the correct kind of scrap in the correct weather is uh transported to the melting unit on the second slide you can see actually a 3d scan of the same transport so you can see actually the truck pulling the the chute in blue color and in the red color you can see the script that is distributed uh inside the chute the reason why we are doing this is actually uh to calculate the volume of the scrap that is charged into the chute and uh we are doing this uh first of all to verify the master data that is stored in the in the database for steel production so that actually the specific volume and weight of the scrap is correct and secondly to be sure that we can avoid any kind of problems when charging the scrap into the conveyor in this in this case because if the volume is very high compared to the weight let's put it like this sometimes it's happening that the scrape is getting stuck uh during the the charging process and of course this costs time to rectify gives you a lot of troubles uh uh uh under on the on the steel plant for floor for cleaning and so on and so on so uh the system in general uh supports you to avoid such situation and making steel production more profitable and safer very interesting thanks sir for bringing like these these examples with you um so we have really some questions so i i um suppose that we just have a look at them um just one uh a question maybe it answers just directly because one of you is just answering uh will be the recording will be it is made um available later on uh yes it will be on the one hand um when you go to the metals technologies corporate linkedin channel this recording will be available to it as a video post on the one hand and on the other hand we will also publish the recording then later on on our metals technologies uh online metals magazine we will post a link also later on so if you have troubles in in following our stream we of course we are glad if you just tried uh hopping onto the stream uh some reasons obviously internet connection is not perfect um but if it's not possible please then have a look on the recording later on so let's have a look at some questions um so the the first question is here um like edgar is asking how do you imagine the scrap market will supply all the demand since the increase of scrap is key for a lot of decarbonizing projects um of of all like do you have any experience and how the script market is evolving is there only like any limitations or shortages the scrap market will remain tight during the next years it is not possible to produce all the steel nearly 2 billion tons per year made of scrap this is simply not possible we don't have enough scrap of course there's an increase of of scrap arising during the next years but 30 40 percent maybe up to fifty percent can be covered uh by scrap and uh and so far there will always be a lack of scrap and for sure also a certain fight for scrap and that also leads to the assumption that scrub producers scrap traders don't have the necessity to produce a perfect quality and so far it's we see more the task in the future inside the steel plants to refine the scrap to the quality they need okay let's see an interesting thing thanks for answer something to eat for you most likely this is the the best and viable solution in simpler words are trying to make better scrap out of of bad scrap by cleaning and preparing preparing it and as hannah already mentioned it it is i think crystal clear that the demand for a high quality scrap will be increasing and an alternative is to use virgin materials instead of of scrap then in an electric advertised for instance which is from energetically point of view not desirable because you need more power to melt such virtual materials and and in fact it has to be feared that even the availability of such urgent materials like hpi for instance will not be sufficient for the demand on the market scrap can be converted up to the quality that there can be an exchange of dri and hbi so that you can react to the market conditions which are challenging here at the moment and who knows what will happen to you in the next months or years yeah yeah can you imagine yeah so another question actually um like from francisco is asking what about the dust generated during the grinding or the storage in the open yard and afterwards in the eaf so even in the images we have just seen it seems that like there's a lot of dust generated what is the strategy to deal with the dust maybe you have an answer for this um when we are looking for a shredded shredded scrap then dust is not an issue because plants are connected to state-of-the-art dusting unit but i think the our visitor is looking for processing hms which can be a dusty a dusty thing but we have in our units dust suppression equipment so that there is no defuse dust emission and furthermore the cleaning unit is in a way efficient that 99 of fine dirt dust is separated so that the scrap after the cleaning does not cause any more environmental issues or concerns very good thanks a lot another question this is i think also for you heiner how can we like emen is asking this how can we exactly know the chemical composition of a batch by by sorting scrap we are using online analysis um maybe we want to show the video at this point yeah we have prepared one video yeah which shows the ecoskin online maybe you just uh yeah it's running up yep and the ecoscan online here it is shown for shredded scrap but we use it as well for a sheared scrap at the moment it's in operation at two steel plants or steel recycling companies one innovative company in german which is cooperating with a flat sea producer and each batch which is supplied to the steel plant has to pass or everything is passing this analyzer so that each railroad cargo or truck has a quality certificate so that the final user which is the steel plant knows exactly the chemical composition of course we can do this also at the entrance at the gate after the inspection of the scrap we can of course also measure the chemical analyzers to assign maybe the scrap to different um sorting or processing equipment this is also possible but by this analysis we are very close to the mythological chemistry so that we can predict an advanced yeah how this scrap can be used very interesting and so together with the optical tools that we can provide you're getting the perfect combination to track the quality of the scrap that you're using in your production maybe one question what do you know exactly andreas this is coming from where is it yeah there's no name display just linkedin user but anyway can you sketch a scrap screening a tool or equipment is it able to separate stainless steel from copper and so on possible or is this some topic for future development no this separation okay this separation is state of the art okay that is not uh that's not a problem okay perfect all right so uh please just uh keep on typing in comments uh to this live stream uh as a lot of others did you before we just go on now with our questions but later on we try to read out again some other comments and questions and if we do not answer all them as mentioned before i will try to reconnect you after this live stream without experts so that the questions will be answered anyway so um in the title of this pioneer's talk we just state that that crafted scrap especially is the key to succeed in a high steel quality and in the production so maybe you can elaborate a bit on this what exactly norm is crafted scrap and and how can you produce crafts or use or provide crafty scrap to your steel factory okay so let me explain actually crafted scrap there is a scrap preparation system which consists of elements of electrics and automation plus mechanical components providing exactly the kind of scrap and the quality of scrap for your target analysis in the required amount in the right timer so this you will get you will get increased safety in your production then decrease the energy consumption and increase the yield of steel in your melting unit so in your description but also now like the solutions like account is providing uh included or is something to be added what crafted scrap is like from from your point of view heiner basically it's to come to a digitalized scrapyard it's a modular system it's starting at the entrance it's starting with the optical inspection with the correct assigning to different scrap pre-processing facilities inside a steel plant and then the analyzers so each step basically can be added in different phases so nothing has to be done in one step but basically with crafted scrap we want to express that steel producers should not accept anymore the quality they get on the market but that they get the quality or that they refine the scrap to a quality which meets exactly the needs of the furnace and not the other way around and we can provide all the tools which are necessary to come from one step that means the scrap that you get and that you have stored on your scrapyard to convert it into the scrap that you really need to produce the steel you want in your melting unit so in between is this combination of electric and automation tools and mechanical tools which can be provided by sitcom and parameters yeah and actually so this this demand for crafted scrap wouldn't need has this always been there and the solutions were not in place or is this something like both of you like like it like uh engineered the solutions and now can offer this kind of enhanced solution or or was it something like a demand which came up recently and if this was the case why um so i believe due to this uh very strong trained mega trender for reducing the co2 footprint of steel production it is became quite a necessity because those high quality steels that are produced and in electric furnaces which are now produced in converters need a special quality of scrap and scrap mixture and this is where we actually target with our crafted scrap initiative and with our tools okay very good and modern electric arc furnaces as per metals supplies designs and supplies them are completely flexible from zero to 100 scrap everything is possible whereas today the integrated plants and as you mentioned it use 20 to 30 percent scrap and that's the limit uh more is not possible and with the new technology dri hpi plus electric arc furnaces we are exceeding this limit of 30 up to 100 and therefore there's more demand for quality scrap and therefore we see significant increase of interest and demand in crafted scrap and of course in the view of co2 footprint reduction it is essential because increasing the scrap rate so recycling material inside and using environmental friendly produced energy to recycle this of course significantly reduces the co2 footprint of seed production which is very important nowadays in a very fast way yep yeah very good term uh when we just talk about demand maybe we can just share the results of a very small poll an online survey i did prior to this event uh there were just a couple of replies but i think it's still very interesting when we talk about demand um on the one hand i was asking you uh are you ready using solutions for processing analysis and sorting of scrap but it was still planned and uh there were like three options as you can see i guess i do know it doesn't it isn't interesting for me at all or the middle answer which all of you chose who actually answered this poll uh saying not yet but i want to in future so obviously what we're discussing now is uh interesting for a lot of you who attend this call now and then we can look at the second diagram at the second poll uh this is exactly what we were just talking about uh i was asking do you think that the smart scrapyard can improve uh your steel production and we have three options uh the first answer uh maybe it was a bit like exaggerated but saying okay humans always outperformed automation obviously none of the answers took this um two-thirds choose the answer that automation improves steel quality which is the topic of our today's talk uh where crafty scrap obviously is the key and one third of you just chose the option automation is essential so obviously there is really a demand also regarding our participant audience here uh and i'm glad that this is the case and maybe before proceed um we will have another look at our questions because there are some of the questions um coming in here um let me see uh there is a question uh from from uh well i think so he's asking a lot of impurities are found in the scrap refining and creating the perfect quality um steel won't be costlier than normal steel production which is a question so as removing all the impurities this will this require a lot of of processing so i don't know can we give an answer to this um that's that's a good question which i cannot answer in a completely general way but what we see is that mechanical processing of scrap is very economic and that the residue which are separated have usually a similar high value than the scrap because of the content of non-ferrous metals and so far you are not inc definitely you are not increasing your average cost for scrap you are reducing the average cost by scrap processing and this becomes obvious when you have such a plan and look at the residue it's very astonishing when you see the amount of non-ferrous metals which is supplied to date to steel plants and used in furnaces and basically lost this is not the idea of circular economy very good point thanks hannah there's another question from wolfgang he is asking where do you see the location for your scrap preparation process or processes should this be next to the scrap supplier or collector or should this be backward integration for steel producers so i know so a question for you maybe i can i can try to answer it um i think in general the best location is inside a steel plant steel plants have usually a number of different suppliers and these suppliers have different ideas and and understandings of quality and in order to get these different suppliers on the same quality level we we need the step of refining inside the steel plant inside the steel plant we usually have the space we have a lower energy cost and the steel plot knows exactly which quality they want to have and it's a question for me which just uh i have the impression that the solutions you provide might not need a a huge investment like in with the new technology but might be a big potential to leverage if you use it as a c producer is this the case if you compare the investment we're not talking about specific figures yeah if you compare the investments to dri plants to electric arc furnaces rolling plants uh we're talking about small figures yeah um and as mentioned before it can be installed step by step each solution is customized therefore we have our scrappy here yeah which should feature customization products we can can take maybe we'll the him he was scrappy actually thanks for being scrappy with you very nice yeah so he can perfectly adapt its color his color here yes yeah it adapts to the environment and through the necessities of the steep plan yeah the same of course applies to the automation packages so they are totally modular and can be integrated into an existing automation environment in a steel planter and depending on the necessities and the needs in the steel production they can be added step by step and add up them to a complete solution in the best way together with mechanical preparation and sensors coming from sitcom yeah very good uh there's an interesting question this is for you andreas um saya is asking um is it possible to replace like a blast furnace by 100 grafton scrap in a large eaf in terms of economic production do you think this is an option nowadays to play super blast furnace via eaf using like grafted scrapton yes of course this is possible and many steel producers which are using now blast to innocent and convert the roots are planning exactly to do that but as i said before our electric arc furnaces are very flexible so they even could use the pig iron that is coming from a blast furnace to be charged into the electric arc furnace together with a scrape with other virgin materials so it depends i would say on an individual solution that of course has to be checked and and found the best way how the steel should be produced very good thanks for answering this yeah please just keep on typing in your comments to this live stream we won't succeed to answer all of them but as i promised you i will follow up them properly so that they will get an answer from my experts after this stream seems to be a lot ah there's a lot of coming in thanks a lot for interest obviously really hit the nerf in the market showing also like our very small poles at the very beginning so maybe um one two questions uh at the very end what i'm interested in i read in in in the newspaper some time ago that metals technologies and sickon recently signed an agreement for a corporation so maybe you can just um explain us what was the motivation for this agreement and what are the benefits for the steel producer due to this agreement what has changed compared to to the situation before signing this this agreement so i believe actually that our sensor and together with the cuscano seconder that you get could consider as the brain of the of the scrapyard together with the mechanical solutions scrap preparation cutting shredding cleaning sauteing baling and so on and so on which are practically speaking the limbs are fitting perfectly together to to provide our customers with solutions which uh perfectly integrate them in their steel production and provide them with the scrap and the required quality to produce their steel very good yeah yes our solutions are complementary and when we want to achieve a scrapyard 4.0 a smart scrap yard then all these solutions are necessary and each solution gives a benefit very good so um another question which is also interesting for me the solutions you presented so far we were discussing about as far as i can see let's say they're really well rather smart making us very smart at the end pimping it up um artisanal solutions which really contribute to um moving me as a steep producer further on my role towards industry for zero or is it just like a kind of advanced automation system which is living in my pulpit no no actually it definitely moves you into the right direction uh towards industry 4 0 all of those solutions can be integrated in primetal's industry for zero environment collecting all the data that actually then can be used to enhance your steel production so it is fully compatible and integratable yeah very good no very impressive um and and to your experience andreas when is then a scrapyard really smart certain statements now it's smart how do we find this yeah as an automation guy i have to say my wishful thinking is uh uh the scrapyard really is smart when all the tribal knowledge and the experience of human operators is integrated into the automation system and can be used then to the maximum degree of repeatability during the process that's my automation point of view very good well um there are a lot of people are online as far as i can see you thanks also a lot for your interest to the participants um i think a lot of stupid users of course are on because this is especially designed for them so if someone is really interested to say okay uh this is interesting for me i want to pimp up my scrap yard i want you to convert my scrap into crafted scrap i will utilize or leverage the potential for my steel production uh so to whom shall we write home shall we contact yeah okay i gladly will collect all those inquiries questions whatever our clients need and of course we are in constant contact with second and we exchange all the information uh regularly so that we can then serve our clients with the right answers and products hopefully okay perfect we'll do our best yeah so this means whenever you have any specific question please just either contact andrea's makeup directly of course for this solutions uh i will put later on again the link to their personal linkedin profiles but of course since you have registered for this pioneer's talk today there are linked improvers anyway connected at this event page as well so um i think we've come to an end basically of this today's live streamed interview i hope you loved uh today's topic i hoped uh i hope the answers of our two experts inspired you and very interesting for you i hope you love this format pioneers talk which we are actually broadcasting on a regular basis the next pioneer's talk by the way will be related to land tracking we're gonna discuss actually what is level tracking and that it's much more than just uh determining where is the position of the level uh this is actually a weird topic i think of this which is very well connected to what we just have discussed now it's also logistics but of course just in the mail shop not regarding to to scrap um if you're interested in this please just either follow the hashtag pioneerstalk or just keep an eye on the corporate channel after metals technologies or follow my linkedin profile so we for sure we get then a notification about our next talk please keep on commenting if you like in this stream as i promised i will fold up your comments properly thanks for being with us thanks for your interest i was overwhelmed by all the comments and the reactions thanks about for that thanks also to our experts andreas for being here yeah thank you too and thanks to our audience and also thanks heiner for being with us and for your interesting answers thanks a lot it was a pleasure perfect thanks again and goodbye you
2022-05-14