Establishing an industrial symbiosis – key factors and time aspects in steel industry

Abstract

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.

Current state of Industrial Symbiosis and Energy Efficiency in the European energy intensive sectors

“…Concerning IS implementation in different EIIs, the steel sector can provide interesting examples of byproducts and energy transactions with other sectors [13]. Some residues from steel production processes can be internally recycled, others can be used in other sectors (e.g., iron oxides and slags are used in Portland cement production, while zinc oxides from the EAF process, can be used as raw material in the Waelz process [14]).…”

Special issue on Materials and Society: the Circular Economy SAM-13

“…Andersson, R. Eriksson of Swerim, Höganäs, SSAB, Boliden and Jernkontoret [6] have considered, from a very general and systemic standpoint (physical, regulatory, business, motivation and society), how residual materials from a steel mill, also called by-products (slag, dust and sludge), which would normally end up as waste, can be delivered to other industries as raw materials. They have developed a methodology to be implemented in collaborative work between the supplier and the recipient of the material; -K. Lundkvist, S. Rosendahl, E. Sandberg, B. Haase, J.…”