Driven by energy transition and climate change, the metal industries are undergoing a deep restructuring. Renewable energies and technologies for decarbonisation are gaining more and more focus from manufacturers of metals and metal processing companies – and the manufacturers of thermal process technology within mechanical and systems engineering in the metallurgical sector.
Not only in steel companies and foundries, in the entire metal industry thermal process technology is a key technology. Rolling mills, forges, presses, hardening plants – practically all metal companies work with heat. Thermal treatment is necessary to prepare many metal products before they undergo further shaping by milling, pressing, forging or extrusion, and it is thermal treatment that gives many metallic products their desired properties. But smelting, heating, annealing, tempering and hardening of iron and non-ferrous metals are energy-intensive processes.
The way to decarbonisation in thermal process technology leads from saving energy to new burner technologies to replacing fossil fuels like oil and gas through green electricity and hydrogen. In the long view, the energy sources of the fossil era are coming to an end, with different periods of transition. The focus is shifting towards hydrogen produced with renewable energy and green electricity.
Manufacturers of thermal process technology are in demand like never before. And they have solutions: From the digitalisation of industrial furnaces to new burner and heat technologies.
