Europe is the world’s second-largest steel producer with an average annual production of 170 million tonnes across 500 production sites. Approximately half of this production is made via Electric Arc Furnaces which generate 10-20 kg of EAFD per tonne of steel produced. Untreated, this dust is considered a hazardous waste and the handling costs for the estimated 1.3 million tonnes Europe produces annually is over €100 million per year for EU steelmakers.
Using a Spanish patent, REWASTEE recycles EAFD into a shape stabilized acoustic insulation with thermal inertia provided by embedded phase change materials (PCM). The material is non-hazardous, flexible, durable, highly dense, and offers compelling value for the product cost at the same time is solves the environmental challenges associated with treating EAFD.
The output of the EU co-funded project REWASTEE is the industrial validation, market deployment and replication of a developed technology for recycling steelmaking wastes and manufacturing multifunctional building products. Constructive solutions using the new material
are developed and tested. The material itself is produced by partner Trimdelson Trade S.L. near Barcelona who has optimized manufacturing process parameters at industrial scale.
Local production is a project goal and it is a competitive advantage to select REWASTEE recycling because there are only a few recycling centres in Europe capable of handling EAFD. As such, steel makers are currently required to transport EAFD across multiple EU countries to recycling facilities.