Research and development

The ANDRITZ METALS research activities aim at both tailor-made solutions for its customers and innovative products and tools to meet the needs of the market.

ANDRITZ METALS runs its own research facilities and pilot plants, where performance tests and analyses of different product characteristics are carried out and processes are developed further, particularly taking the synergies between different process steps, such as annealing, pickling, and rolling of strip, into account.

Another focus is energy saving by using waste energy to drive other processes, for instance waste heat from the annealing furnace is used to evaporate effluents. Environmentally friendly plants are a top priority and our development goals are directed towards emission-free plant processes.

R&D activities in 2011

Further development of the ANDRITZ Pyromars process was one of the research and development activities in 2011. This process provides a means of recovering the pickling acid and other valuable substances like chromium and nickel in stainless steel pickling plants. In addition to this economic advantage, a substantial drop can be achieved in the landfill of neutralization sludges otherwise occurring and the nitrate load in effluent can be reduced by up to 90%. In order to make use of the residual load left in the rinsing water, a pilot plant that neutralizes and evaporates the rinsing water was started up in cooperation with a customer from China. The concentrate occurring in this plant can be fed to the Pyromars plant and reused for rinsing purposes. In a further expansion stage, the pilot plant is operated with waste heat from the annealing furnace.

ANDRITZ can thus offer its customers a completely closed loop for operating media, making use of waste heat that otherwise remains unused.