This year the European Academic Symposium on EAF Steelmaking (EASES) took place in Oulu, Finland. Already for the fifth time, PhD students, postdocs and other scientists from European universities came together from July 05–07, 2023, to present and discuss current results of their research projects on electric steelmaking. The IOB was represented as official co-organizer by Thomas Echterhof, Siddharth Nachankar and Amit Sharma.
The symposium started on Monday, July 05, 2023, with a meeting at the famous Toripolliisi statue in the center of Oulu, followed by a city tour and an informal dinner. The next two days were filled with a program of a total of 29 lectures topics related to electric steelmaking in the electric arc furnace. The lectures on July 06 focused on process control and sensor technology as well as process modeling and simulation. The program on July 07 included sessions on slag and by-products, processing and valorization, reduction of CO2 emissions and environmental impact, and fossil-free raw materials in electrolysis.
As part of the program, the nearly 60 participants also took part in a laboratory tour of the University of Oulu’s Process Metallurgy Research Department, where some of the melting and testing equipment was presented. The current research status of their work was presented by our colleagues in the following presentations:
- Determination of the Hot Heel in an Electric Arc Furnace Using Computer Vision
Amit Sharma, Thomas Echterhof, Herbert Pfeifer - A Review of Thermodynamic and Kinetic Models for the behavior of Nitrogen in an Electric Arc Furnace
Siddharth Nachankar, Thomas Echterhof, Herbert Pfeifer - Decreasing the environmental impact of the electric steel making process through implementation of retrofitting solutions
Felix Kaiser, Tim Reichel, Thomas Echterhof, Diana Mier, Iñigo Unamuno, Herbert Pfeifer - Application of Hydrogen-Fueled Burners in Electric Arc Furnaces
Lilly Schüttensack, Thomas Echterhof, Herbert Pfeifer
One of the highlights of the conference was the dinner on Tuesday. It was held at Patisserie Ravintola Rauhala and gave a further insight into academic life at the University of Oulu. During the dinner, the prize for the best paper was awarded to Davide Mombelli from Politecnico di Milano. In addition, the best paper by a doctoral candidate went to our colleague Lilly Schüttensack for her paper on the “Application of Hydrogen-Fueled Burners in Electric Arc Furnaces”. The dinner was rounded off by a performance of the band Teekkaritorvet, composed of students from the university, who performed a number of jazz classics.
At the end of the conference, co-organizer Thomas Echterhof thanked everyone who contributed to a successful EASES 2023. Special thanks went to Ville-Valtteri Visuri and his colleagues from the University of Oulu for hosting EASES 2023 and for the excellent organization of the event. Finally, it was announced that the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia will host EASES 2025. We are already looking forward to the sixth symposium!