Sustainability of and through materials

Dr.-Ing. Matic Jovičević-Klug heads new MPIE research group more

An economical process with green hydrogen can be used to extract CO₂-free iron from the red mud generated in aluminium production more

Three new group leaders at MPIE address battery challenges through experimental and theoretical approaches more

European Innovation Council supports a research project led by Technical University Darmstadt with 3 million euros more

Max Planck scientists explore the possibilities of artificial intelligence in materials science and publish their review more

Max Planck materials scientists use ammonia for sustainable iron- and steelmaking. They publish their latest findings in the Journal Advanced Science
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New video explains the benefits of ammonia as hydrogen carrier and reduction material for iron ores more

Researcher team led by Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung published latest findings in the journal Advanced Energy Materials more

In this EU Horizon project, we at MPIE, will focus on the sustainable pre-reduction of manganese ores with hydrogen, especially the kinetic analysis of the reduction process using thermogravimetry analysis and an in-depth understand the role of microstructure and local chemistry in the reduction process.
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Start of a collaborative research project on the sustainable production of manganese and its alloys being funded by European Union with 7 million euros more

International researcher team presents a novel microstructure design strategy for lean medium-manganese steels with optimized properties in the journal Science more

How iron can be used to store and transport energy more

New video explains how green hydrogen is produced more

Researcher team published recent findings in the journal Nature more

Hydrogen embrittlement (HE) is one of the most dangerous embrittlement problems in metallic materials and  advanced high-strength steels (AHSS) are particularly prone to HE with the presence of only a few parts-per-million of H. However, the HE mechanisms in these materials remain elusive, especially for the lightweight steels where the composition and microstructure significantly differ from the traditional plain-carbon steels. Here we focus on a high-Mn and high-Al lightweight steel and unravel the effects of H-associated decohesion and localized plasticity on its H-induced catastrophic failure.

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About 90% of all mechanical service failures are caused by fatigue. Avoiding fatigue failure requires addressing the wide knowledge gap regarding the micromechanical processes governing damage under cyclic loading, which may be fundamentally different from that under static loading. This is particularly true for deformation-induced martensitic transformation (DIMT), one of the most common strengthening mechanisms for alloys. Here, we identify two antagonistic mechanisms mediated by martensitic transformation during the fatigue process through in situ observations and demonstrate the dual role of DIMT in fatigue crack growth and its strong crack-size dependence. Our findings open up avenues for designing fatigue-resistant alloys through optimal use of DIMT. They also enable the development of physically based lifetime prediction models with higher fidelity.
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Replacing carbon by hydrogen as the reducing agent in ironmaking offers a pathway to massively reduce the associated CO₂ emissions. However, the production of hydrogen using renewable energy will remain as one of the bottlenecks at least in the next two decades. The underlying reasons are the low electrolysis productivity and the insufficient capacities in both renewable electricity and industrial infrastructures to produce sufficient amounts of green hydrogen, especially in view of the gigantic demand for currently 1.8 billion tons of steel being produced every year, with forecasts predicting 2.4 billion tons by the year 2040. We therefore demonstrate how the efficiency in hydrogen and energy consumption during iron ore reduction can be dramatically improved by the knowledge-based combination of two technologies: partially reducing the ore at low temperature via solid-state hydrogen-based direct reduction (HyDR) to a kinetically defined degree, and subsequently melting and completely transforming it to iron under a reducing plasma (i.e. via hydrogen plasma reduction, HPR) more

To successfully transition from fossil fuels to a sustainable carbon-free energy supply, a safe and stable energy storage technology is required. Recently, metallic powders, and particularly iron powder, have been proposed as a high energy density, easily storable, and commonly traded fuel. Energy production is obtained through the heat of oxidation, and the combusted products can then be reduced at the solid-state using hydrogen coming from sustainable energy sources, resulting in a complete CO₂-free energy cycle. While the combustion of iron powders seems very promising in this regard, hardly anything is known about its in-process morphological, microstructural, and chemical evolution, which are critical for the circularity of the concept and the subsequent reduction process.
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Iron- and steelmaking is the most staggering single source of CO₂ emissions on the planet, accounting for ~7% of the global emissions. This fact challenges the current technologies to achieve carbon-lean steel production and reduce CO₂ emissions by 80% until 2050. Among the sustainable alternatives for ironmaking, the hydrogen plasma reduction (HPR) is a promising route, as the associated by-product is water. In this process, a hydrogen plasma arc is ignited between an electrode and the ore in a conventional electrical arc furnace (EAF), Figure 1 (a). Thus, melting and reduction occur simultaneously, enabling the production of liquid iron in single step. The highly energetic hydrogen species existing in a reducing plasma also enable exothermic redox chemical reactions with enhanced kinetics, permitting energy savings.
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The HYDRI project aims at disentangling the correlation between material micro-/nanostructures and the hydrogen-based direct reduction (HyDR) kinetics, to reveal the vital role of acquired defects in HyDR processes. A multiscale and time-resolved operando approach will be used to characterize micro-/nanostructures in HyDR. Gaining better insights into these effects enable improved access to the microstructure-based design of more efficient HyDR methods, with potentially high impact on the urgently needed decarbonization in the steel industry. more