ThyssenKrupp AG, Germany, in collaboration with partners from research and industry, is initiating a cross-sector technology transfer project focused on converting process gases from steel production into valuable chemicals. The goal for this collaboration between the steel and chemical industries is to permit cost-effective carbon recycling into fertilizers or fuel.
According to Professor Robert Schlögl, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim, “The mission of our institute is to research the fundamental chemical processes involved in energy conversion and thus contribute to the development of new and more efficient catalysts.”
With its subsidiaries ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe, Germany’s biggest steelmaker, and ThyssenKrupp Uhde, a world leading engineering company for chemical, refinery and other industrial plants, and with the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim, ThyssenKrupp AG has already carried out planning and preliminary research in a joint preparatory project.
Interest from potential partners is high: Around 40 representatives from research organizations, universities and companies gathered in Duisburg in December 2013 to launch the project. In addition to the Fraunhofer and Max Planck societies, the group includes Ruhr University Bochum, the University of Duisburg-Essen, and the Duisburg-based Fuel Cell Research Center ZBT. Alongside ThyssenKrupp, the industrial partners involved from the start are BASF, Bayer, RWE and Siemens. The group is open to further members.
