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In the Swedish steel industry, much work is put on further increasing the recycling and use of residual materials. However, blast furnace sludge is one residual which currently, despite its valuable contents of iron and carbon, is put on landfill or long-term storage due to its zinc content. Linde has developed the OXYFINES technique which is suitable for upgrading of fine particulate and zinc containing materials. The material is fed to the OXYFINES burner whereby its zinc content is vaporised to a generated dust phase whereas other non-gasifiable contents, such as iron, forms an oxidic sinter phase in the bottom of the reactor. The technique has proven a high degree of zinc separation, is relatively flexible and straightforward, and does not require sludge pre-treatment such as drying. Pilot set-up and trials, using the OXYFINES technique, were performed at Swerim’s research facility. In the trials, the effects from altering different process parameters were tested aiming to develop an optimal concept for upgrading the blast furnace sludge. The pilot trials’ results showed the required process settings to attain a high degree of zinc separation from the sludge, and to generate an iron oxide product, suitable for straightforward charging to the steelmaking process.

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Today production industry has increasing incentives to be resource efficient and sustainable. Many residual material streams from production processes are therefore recycled internally; however, some streams might be of better use in another industry. In this study, factors seen as encouraging and/or barriers in the work towards an industrial symbiosis with residual materials, between two or more industries, were identified. The factors were divided into five categories: physical/technical, regulatory, business, motivation and society, on three organisational levels. Based on the key factors, the time aspect for establishing an industrial symbiosis was studied and criteria that need to be met in order to carry on with a business idea for a residual material were divided into three work phases. The study shows that an industrial symbiosis based on residual materials on many levels differs from a business with main products, for example when it comes to laws and policies. With residual materials it is also extra important to have good understanding of the material properties and the customer’s material requirements. It was concluded that the establishment of industrial symbioses would be facilitated if all materials had the same conditions regardless of origin provided that the final product gets the same properties.