PreMa · Energy efficient, primary production of manganese ferroalloys through the application of novel energy systems in the drying and pre-heating of furnace feed materials.

Global Manganese-alloys (Mn) are highly linked to the steel sector for key engineering applications in Europe. In 2017, Mn-alloy production was approx. 4 Mio tons, required 12,200 GWh electrical energy and emitted around 14.2 Mio tons of CO2. Therefore, an energy intensive and inherent cross-sectorial value chain that is, nowadays, led by the Asian market demand. PREMA is an ambitious initiative that aims at demonstrating an innovative suite of technologies (involving heat recovery and solar technologic approaches) that allow to pre-treat Mn ores, utilising more efficiently energy and material streams and decreasing direct and indirect CO2 emissions (along with SO2 and NOx). LCA and LCCA methodologies will be implemented from early stages to ensure the technical, economic and environmental viability of the solution across the whole Mn-alloys’ value chain. The vision of PREMA is thus to make the Mn-alloys sector in Europe more flexible, sustainable and attractive. In order to cover the whole value chain, there is a strong presence of South African (SA) partners in the consortium, SA being the top 1 in high quality Mn ores’ extraction and exports worldwide. A win-win situation in order to strengthen the Mn-alloys and steel value chains in Europe. PREMA consortium puts together a total of 11 production facilities spread over Europe and SA among 4 Mn producers, representing an aggregated process capacity of 380 MW (Transalloys in SA, Eramet in France and Norway, Ferroglobe in Norway and Spain and OFZ in Slovakia). The innovative character of the project is brought by major players in R&D across Europe and SA, with the Norwegian organisation SINTEF as coordinator. Last but not least, clustering with other EU initiatives, including other SPIRE projects, will be paid special attention in order to create awareness of the project developments from early stages of the demonstration.