Recycling-oriented alloy design for next-generation of sustainable metallic materials

European industry increasingly focusses on recycling, pushing towards circular economy as part of EU Green deal. This offers enormous energy savings and CO2 reductions.

However, there are several problems hindering the metals recycling.Effective solution to counter these problems is the development of new alloys, recycling-friendly by design.One of the rising problems during recycling, is the progressive accumulation of impurities in alloys produced from scrapmetal.

Elements such as tin cannot be effectively removed during manufacturing alloys from scrap.

Therefore, the nextgeneration of alloys will have be able to tolerate more impurities (therefore inclusions) than current alloys. Such materialsalso have to be more resistant to fracture, due to the potential damage nucleation at inclusions.

However, impurities causesignificant changes of properties and induce considerable complexity even in simple alloy systems.

Therefore, thedevelopment of the recycling-oriented alloys based on understanding of changes caused by various compositionaldeviations require a significant volume of research.Concentrated solid solution alloys, including some of the established compositions of austenitic steels have the attributesessential for recycling-oriented alloys.

They show enhanced tolerance to compositional deviations due to the extendedcompositional space with desired microstructures. and intrinsically high ductility levels.In this project, we first aim to analyze the consequences of the compositional changes and impurities to the changes ofmechanical properties and damage-tolerance of said materials.

Ultimately, scrap-compatible alloys for sustainablemetallurgy will be prepared. Special attention will be placed on the effects of the elemental partitioning and their interactionswith defects.

The project outcomes will contribute to the development of recycling-oriented alloys on the global level, for future green metallurgy with reduced environmental impact.