RESEARCH NEWS
New AI project for advanced materials
The Danish Technological Institute is developing an AI tool that will connect players across Europe.
“ Many actors in Europe are working with advanced materials, but it is difficult to get a comprehensive overview of ongoing initiatives and competences. The lack of coordination can lead to duplication of effort and wasted opportunities for cooperation. The new EU project, InnoMatSyn, will rectify this, among other things by creating a comprehensive digital overview so that researchers, companies and foundations can more easily find each other and collaborate on the material solutions of the future,” said the Institute.“ In recent years, we have seen that the material ecosystem in Europe is not cohesive. Synergies disappear and activities are repeated that could have been avoided,” added Nikolaj Zangenberg, centre head of the Danish Technological Institute. He highlighted that work with advanced materials is crucial for both the green transition and European competitiveness.
“ Materials are a fundamental building block for almost all technology. If we do not gather our strength and create an overview, we risk Europe falling behind,” he said.
To solve this challenge, the Danish Technological Institute is at the forefront of developing a digital tool that gathers knowledge and makes it easy to find relevant actors, projects and material competencies across Europe. The tool is based on artificial intelligence and draws on data from research environments and foundations.
“ We are developing an AI tool that can understand the many different types of materials and link knowledge across projects, companies and countries. The ambition is that researchers, industrialists and funding foundations can quickly tune in to the right activities and partners and avoid reinventing the wheel,” confirmed Nikolaj Zangenberg.
When InnoMatSyn is completed in 2028, the expectation is that those who work with advanced materials will find it significantly easier to orient themselves, make contact and benefit from each other’ s skills.
“ Our goal is to make it much more manageable and efficient to collaborate on material solutions throughout Europe. This can strengthen both innovation and Europe’ s position internationally,” concluded Nikolaj Zangenberg. n
https:// www. dti. dk /
Sustainable steel industry challenges
More than 110 participants from academia and industry gathered at RWTH Aachen University in Germany for ICSS 2025, the International Colloquium for Sustainable Steel, to discuss the latest developments and global strategies for building a more sustainable steel industry.
“ Steel remains the backbone of modern society, with an annual global output of about two billion tons powering everything from railways and wind turbines to electric vehicles. But this essential material comes at a cost: steelmaking accounts for roughly seven per cent of global CO₂ emissions,” said the university.
“ The good news? Most of these emissions could be eliminated with existing technology. If steel production were fully electrified and powered by renewable energy, iron ore could be reduced directly using hydrogen instead of coking coal. The resulting direct reduced iron( DRI) can be flexibly combined with steel scrap in electric arc furnaces to produce new steel products. Despite current economic and political challenges, large-scale DRI plants with annual capacities exceeding two million tons each are already under construction in Sweden, Germany and Mexico,” it continued.
A key conference focus was tackling impurities in scrap and recycled materials. Elements such as copper, tin, sulphur
Professor Ulrich Krupp.
and phosphorus can limit quality and complicate further processing. Researchers outlined how modern sorting technologies and adapted production processes can help redefine tolerance thresholds and improve the properties of recycled steels in targeted ways.
The event programme also addressed the needs of emerging industries such as electric mobility and hydrogen infrastructure. Professor Nora Leuning, RWTH Chair of Electrical Machines and Drives, presented new material concepts designed specifically for high-performance electric motors— materials that combine high mechanical strength with minimal magnetic losses. Other presentations highlighted the promise of machine learning in solving complex, multidimensional challenges such as optimising fine blanking processes for sheet metal with varying impurity levels.
Looking ahead, one conclusion emerged: transforming the steel industry depends upon a new generation of highly skilled experts. Enter the newly established Circular Steel Research Training Group, recently approved by the German Research Foundation( DFG).
“ We will examine the three dimensions of circularity— recycling, durability and material efficiency— across the steel value chain through twelve tightly interconnected research projects,” concluded Professor Ulrich Krupp, spokesperson for the research training group and co-organiser of the ICSS 2025 colloquium.
The ICSS 2025 conference programme can be viewed on www. icss. rwth-aachen. de / cms / icss /~ bkqmmn / Programm / lidx / 1 / n
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. rwth-aachen. de
26 | ismr. net | ISMR October 2025