State-of-the-Art Metallic Materials and Metallurgy in Germany

Dear Colleagues,

With the current amendment to the Climate Protection Act, the German government has tightened climate protection targets and set the goal of achieving greenhouse gas neutrality by 2045. In order to reduce CO₂ emissions by 65 percent by 2030 compared with 1990 levels, a billion-euro program has been launched to help decarbonize industry, among other things. Energy-intensive industries in metal production and processing are particularly affected, with the result that they are facing a comprehensive and irreversible transformation in order to achieve the climate targets set.

In this context, the use of hydrogen as a climate-friendly energy source in particular will gain strongly in importance in the future and through improved availability (power-to-gas processes of hydrogen generation, e.g., from wind energy and tidal power plants) through broader applications such as fuel cell powertrains (for passenger cars, trucks, ships, rail vehicles and aircraft propulsion), and in particular in the steel industry in the production of “green steel” through direct reduction. On the one hand, this gives rise to various requirements for metallic materials, the mastering of which is crucial for the sensible use of hydrogen. For the use of hydrogen in the above-mentioned areas, which are characterized by large-scale and mass production, appropriate materials and processes must be developed in the future which are not only technologically suitable but can also be implemented economically and suitable for series production. On the other hand, the decarbonization of primary steelmaking to produce green steel via the direct reduction of iron ore will offer great potential for CO₂ reduction in the coming decades, but will also entail major development tasks, both in plant engineering and in metallurgy and forming technology.

In addition, from the perspective of both decarbonization and resource efficiency, it will become essential to use secondary material sources much more consistently than before. For the increasingly important material source of electromobility, it can be seen that aluminum, for example, is used for battery housings as a structural material and at the same time also in battery cells as a functional material, and is available for recovery after recycling. During recycling, however, it is hardly possible to separate the various alloys used by type, which is why the resulting recyclate contains various alloying and tramp elements that, if not regenerated with primary aluminum, would steadily increase contamination in the secondary material cycle after each cycle. However, the production of primary aluminum must be regarded as increasingly critical for energy reasons, which is why metallurgy and metal processing must adapt to steadily recycling-intensive secondary materials.

The focus of this Special Issue is therefore on contributions to the state-of-the-art and the transformation of metallurgy and processing of metallic materials in Germany, considering the aspects of decarbonization and recyclability.

Prof. Dr. Axel von Hehl
Prof. Dr. Rainer Fechte-Heinen
Guest Editors

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• metallic materials
• metallurgy
• processing
• decarbonization
• recyclability