CO2-NiCE work packages

CO2-NiCE comprises three work packages. More on these below

Work Package 1: Management and coordination

The work under Work Package 1 will consist of the management function of the project with the project manager and the coordinator. Within this work package, the activities will be managed, reported to the funding organisation, and followed up to ensure goal fulfilment. The project's dissemination of results and contact with industrial stakeholders will also be handled within this package. Within the work package, courses and workshops are organized for knowledge transfer and dialogue with parties outside the project organization. As the project will contribute to excellence for the green transition, it is of utmost importance that knowledge is disseminated also outside traditional channels

1.1 Management and coordination activities

This activity includes reporting, coordination, steering group meetings and financial follow-up. The organization of workshops with external stakeholders, as well as project dissemination of results and contact with industrial stakeholders, is also included. Courses and workshops for knowledge transfer and dialogue with parties outside the project organization are also included.

Work package 2: Resource efficient and resilient steel value chains

The objective is to improve the circularity and resource efficiency of steel by improving
management of steel resources in terms of recycling and sustainability. With the transition to a fossil-free society, steel and other metals and minerals will minerals will play a crucial role. Today, the focus is on replacing fossil carbon in iron production from ore, but even if we succeed in producing fossil-free steel, we need to increase resource efficiency in the recycling of steel. Steel already has a high recycling rate today, but unfortunately much of the recycling involves a form of downcycling, where the recycled steel is of lower quality than the original. This is due to the large variation in composition of the incoming steel resources. Another issue is the accumulation of alloying elements, especially those that are more noble and less volatile than iron, as these are more difficult to remove. This work package aims to improve the efficiency of steel recycling, avoid degradation in the recycling cycle and create a comprehensive understanding of the impact of different measures on the value chain.

2.1 Efficient management of resources (scrap)

The objective is to maintain and improve the value of secondary steel (scrap) through optimized
sorting and characterization. Scrap used in recycling is divided into two or three main categories. The first category, generated by the industry itself, is Home and Prompt scrap. Scrap in this category is relatively easy to recycle because its composition is well known, it is only handled by companies and can be kept within the same specialized value chain. The second category is Obsolete scrap, scrap consisting of used products, which is more challenging to to recycle. This scrap is collected from various sources, such as the construction and automotive industries, and generally enters the recycling system without specific material data and has been used in a variety of different applications. The different applications contribute different contaminants (tramp elements), such as organics (e.g. oil, grease, plastics), and metals such as zinc and copper. In this activity, we will try to identify the recycling practices of industry. This applies to both internal scrap from steel producing companies and their internal practices, and the collection and management of obsolete scrap, i.e. scrap collected after the product's lifetime. This can include steel from the construction industry, the automotive industry and others. Furthermore, different possible sorting and characterization methods will be evaluated. The optimization of the recycling process, i.e. through optimized sorting and improved characterization will be based on this mapping.

2.2 Accumulation of alloying elements

The aim is to understand how accumulated alloying elements affect the properties of steel, with particular focus on accumulation after several recycling cycles. This is an area that is currently relatively unexplored. Accumulated substances can have unexpected and undesirable effects on the microstructure, which in turn affects the quality and properties of the steel. This activity aims to develop strategies to avoid negative effects of accumulated alloying elements. Examples of such strategies include refining the steel and/or applying tailor-made thermomechanical treatments that can be adapted and optimized based on the actual composition of the steel. The first step will be to identify the alloying elements that pose the greatest risk of causing significant quality degradation. For each alloying element or group of alloying elements a recommended strategy will be developed. The results of this activity will be fed back to Activity 2.1 and can thus also form a basis for future recycling procedures. Similarly, the mapping carried out in Activity 2.1 will contribute to the prioritization of which alloying elements are first considered in this activity. Furthermore, close collaboration is envisaged with Work Package 3 where the impact of these alloying elements is quantified and addressed.

2.3 Life cycle assessment of the steel value chain

The activity aims at promoting and applying a holistic perspective of the whole steel value chain steel value chain, taking into account both industry and society at large. This activity mainly consists of a life cycle assessment, focusing on a comparative (comparative) analysis comparing different scenarios with each other. The scenarios will be based on the results of the other activities of the project. The aim of the life cycle assessment is to avoid rebound effects and problem shifting, and to provide recommendations that improve the project's technical activities and promote the effective future implementation of the project results.

Work package 3: Implementation of carbon neutral steel materials

In order to accelerate the implementation of carbon neutral steels, there are challenges with end-user acceptance of new materials and requirements for more robust manufacturing processes for materials with greater dispersion in constituent properties due to increased scrap content. This is particularly true of the automotive industry, where lead times of several years occur before new steel reaches the market and is adopted in end-user production. The automotive industry is also considered to be the most important user, at least initially, of the new steels produced in northern Sweden, which makes this challenge even more relevant to solve. The work package addresses this challenge by developing methods for rapid material characterization relevant to the spread seen in properties due to increased scrap content. Furthermore, it will be studied how different manufacturing processes such as forming and stamping can be robustly designed to accept a larger span in constituent alloying elements with a negligible reduction in final properties. A special focus will be directed in one of the activities on the surface properties of the steel material such as surface finish and oxide layer. Furthermore, as different surface coatings will be investigated as their interaction with different alloying elements in the steel is not investigated but also that coatings in themselves affect recyclability. The research in Work Package 3 will both provide the steel industry with new methods to validate the quality of steel to end users but also provide end users with processes to to accept materials with a greater variability.

3.1 Validation of material properties

The increasing scrap content as an effect of fossil-free steel production leads to a change and greater variability in steel properties due to a greater variety of alloying elements used. For example, formability, weldability and mechanical properties such as fracture toughness and fatigue strength can change. At present, the steel industry needs to carry out a large amount of testing according to different standards for each steel grade to ensure these properties before end users such as the automotive industry purchase the steel for their production. This leads to lead times of several years for new materials to reach the market and will delay the use of the new steels. Therefore, this activity this activity aims to develop new efficient testing methods to ensure that the properties of the new properties of the new steels meet end-user requirements. Effective test methods such as fracture mechanics, hardness tests and various forms of tensile tests, will be investigated together with what can be seen via microstructural investigations. The aim is to quantify both the material properties but also the variation in
these properties. In addition to the design of new test methods, an important issue will be how many tests need to be performed and how large a volume of material needs to be to be examined to obtain representative values of the mechanical properties and their dispersion. The activity will lead to a basis for developing a new standard for validation of material properties.

3.2 Process requirements and final properties

Today's manufacturing processes are optimized towards the best possible final properties. Examples that will be dealt with in this work package are hot and cold forming and cutting and punching of sheet metal, which are common manufacturing processes in the automotive industry. A challenge when these processes are highly optimized is that they are sensitive to disturbances and a clear deterioration of the final properties can be seen if, for example, there is a variability in properties of the incoming material. This is exactly the case with the new steels with a higher scrap content where a greater variability in alloying elements and hence a greater variability in e.g. yield strength and ductility will be seen. For thermomechanical processes such as press hardening, this variability is particularly worrisome. Different alloying elements in combination control hardenability and a local variation in alloying elements can therefore lead to localized areas of response in the component. In this activity, the manufacturing processes mentioned above should be optimized with respect to robustness, in other words that a variation in input material properties leads to small variations in the output quality of finished components. Examples of parameters to study are the impact of the cutting tool design on the quality of the cutting edge, which further controls the strength of the component in fatigue and crash. Also, the process requirements for dispersion in properties, and hence alloying elements, should be defined to provide appropriate specifications for steel producing industry.

3.3 Surface quality and coating

The surface quality of the steel product after undergoing various manufacturing processes and whether any coatings are used has a major impact on the final properties of the product. For example, oxide layers, defects such as cracks and indentations, and surface finish will negatively affect fatigue properties as well as the visual properties, affecting the usability of the steel material in certain applications. With the shift to more scrap-based steelmaking, the tolerance ranges of different alloying elements will vary more, which will also affect the surface quality of the steel due to changes in the oxide composition but also mechanical properties that have an impact on the behavior of the steel during forming and processing. This also applies to the possibilities of coating the steel with different surface layers where issues such as adhesion and suitable composition need to be investigated. On the one hand, the content of the coatings will play a major role in the final properties of the product, but also in the recycling of the products. The work in this activity will focus on mapping mechanical properties, chemical composition and the interaction between these on, for example, oxide layers formed when the steel is processed or surface coatings added by a separate process and how these interact with tools in different manufacturing processes. By creating an increased knowledge of this, and its link to surface defects, process windows can be optimized for different manufacturing processes with the goal of minimizing the impact of any variations on incoming steel material. A long-term goal is to be able to contribute with the data and information needed to create an increased robustness for manufacturing processes with regard to variations in incoming materials regarding composition and previous process history.