Sustainability of and through materials

Shaping our future in terms of sustainable technologies, new materials and industrial processes is one of the most important topics of our generation and we are in need of scientific and engineering answers. How can we avoid the use of carbon as energy and reductant carrier in the entire field of materials science and engineering? How can we make better and rare-earth free permanent magnets for electrical vehicles? How can we render alloys sustainable and improve recycling rates? Which are the novel materials that can withstand embrit­tlement caused by hydrogen? And what is the potential of new thermoelectric and so­lar cell absorber materials for green power generation? We have devoted our efforts to provide answers to these pressing ques­tions, showing you here some of our cur­rent research in the field of sustainability.

All about Hydrogen
Here you will find all information about hydrogen research at the MPIE. The list contains research projects as well as press releases on latest publications and explanatory videos. more

Explanatory Videos 

All topics concerning sustainability and decarburization

Innovating alloy production: a single step from ores to sustainable metals

Max Planck scientists design a process that merges metal extraction, alloying and processing into one single, eco-friendly step. Their results are now published in the journal Nature. more

In the foreground, a section of the extensive area of a landfill site with rust-red mud, in the background a much smaller aluminium plant. The plant and landfill are located on a gulf, which can be seen in the upper half of the picture. Green meadows can be seen on the right.

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

Optimized magnets for the energy transition

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

Using artificial intelligence to design innovative materials

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

Ammonia: efficient hydrogen carrier and green steel enabler

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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Sustainable steel production using ammonia

New video explains the benefits of ammonia as hydrogen carrier and reduction material for iron ores more

Tuning thermoelectric materials for efficient power generation

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

HAlMan

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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Sustainability and competitiveness for Europe’s metallurgical industry

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

Sustainable, ultra-strong and ductile steel through advanced processing

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

Metal powder: zero-carbon fuel for the future?

How iron can be used to store and transport energy more

Hydrogen - the future fuel source

New video explains how green hydrogen is produced more

World record in solar cell efficiency achieved

Researcher team published recent findings in the journal Nature more

Hydrogen-associated decohesion and localized plasticity in a high-Mn two-phase lightweight steel

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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The dual role of martensitic transformation in fatigue crack growth

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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Hybrid hydrogen-based reduction of iron ores

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

Iron powder as metal fuel

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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Hydrogen plasma-based reduction of iron ores

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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Multiscale and Operando Studies on the Role of Micro- and Nanostructures in Hydrogen-based Direct Reduction of Iron Oxides

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

Modulus

Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) is the most commonly used Additive Manufacturing processes. One of its biggest advantages it offers is to exploit its inherent specific process characteristics, namely the decoupling the solidification rate from the parts´volume, for novel materials with superior physical and mechanical properties. One prominet example are so called High Modulus Steels, where the combination of strong, ductile and tough metallic matrices with stiff ceramic particles allows the specific modulus (E/ρ) to be increased compared to conventional materials such as aluminum or steel, thereby reducing weight. The aim of this project is to elucidate the synthesis/microstructure/property causalities of high modulus steel fabricated with the LPBF process. more

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