The SisAl Pilot project: a new EU initiative in the raw materials field
16 Sep 2020
The SisAl Pilot project has been funded by the European Commission under the H2020 Funding Programme, topic CE-SC5-07-2018-2019-2020 “Raw materials innovation for the circular economy: sustainable processing, reuse, recycling and recovery schemes”.
The main objective of this 4-year project is to demonstrate a patented novel industrial process to produce silicon (Si, a critical raw material), enabling a shift from today’s process to a far more environmentally and economically alternative: in SisAl Pilotquartz in slag is reduced though aluminothermic reduction that utilizes secondary raw materials such as aluminium (Al) scrap and dross, as replacements for carbon reductants used today.
The project started on the 1st May 2020 and is being implemented by a first-class international consortium led by the Norges Teknisk-Naturvitenskapelige Universitet (NTNU). The SisAl Pilot project brings together raw material provider (Explotacion de Rocas Industriales y Minerales – Erimsa), silicon and aluminium key actors (Wacker Chemicals Norway, Elkem, DOW Silicones Corporation, Silicor Materials Iceland ehf., SiQAl, Hydro Aluminium AS, FUNDICIONES REY, Befesa Aluminio SLU, MYTILINEOS HOLDINGS S.A), SME´s/consultants/ equipment manufacturers (BNW-Energy AS, SIMTEC, CiaoTech Srl, Innovation Engineering srl and Silbucam S.L.) and research organisations (NTNU, RWTH Aachen University (RWTH), National technical university of Athens – (NTUA), Consorcio Instituto Tecnolóxico de Matemática Industrial (ITMATI), SINTEF Industry, Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden – Rossendorf e.V. (HZDR), MINTEK) to demonstrate the SisAl process with different raw materials and product outputs in 4 different countries. These pilots will be accompanied by environmental, economic and technological benchmarking, and industrial business cases will be assessed for locations in Norway, Iceland, Germany, Spain and Greece.
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