More than SEK 200 million invested in the metals and minerals industry of the future
News
The Swedish Energy Agency has granted funding to 24 new research and innovation projects within Swedish Metals & Minerals. The projects will contribute to a sustainable and resilient supply of metals and minerals through solutions in digitalisation, circularity and climate neutrality.
24 new research and innovation projects within Swedish Metals & Minerals have been granted funding by the Swedish Energy Agency through the call Impact Innovation – Swedish Metals & Minerals: Sustainable transformation in the metals and minerals industry: digitalisation, circularity and climate neutrality.
The projects have a combined budget of more than SEK 205 million, of which approximately SEK 118 million comes from the Swedish Energy Agency.
The call is part of Swedish Metals & Minerals’ work to enable a sustainable and resilient supply of metals and minerals for the societal transition. This means contributing to increased and secured access to metals and minerals, while reducing the planetary footprint of extraction and production.
The funded projects focus on three areas:
- resource-efficient and circular production processes
- fossil-free and climate-neutral processes
- advanced digitalisation and AI
Within these areas, the projects will contribute new knowledge, methods and solutions that strengthen the transformation of the metals and minerals industry. This may include using resources more efficiently, developing processes with lower climate impact, or creating better conditions for the industrial use of digitalisation and AI.
Together, the projects strengthen the Swedish Metals & Minerals portfolio with initiatives linked to several parts of the value chain and to the program’s broader work with system innovation. Achieving the mission requires not only individual technical solutions, but also the ability to develop, test and apply solutions in industrial contexts.
The projects will start during or shortly after the summer and will run for between two and four years.
Projects granted funding
Below is a list of the 24 projects granted funding. Two of the granted projects are still awaiting publication in the Swedish Energy Agency’s project portal. We will update the article with links to these projects as soon as they become available.
GROP – Glycerol-based lubRicants for a truly fOssil-free, clean, and safe steel Production
COAT – High quality advanced functional coatings at dramatically reduced energy cost: exploiting the newly discovered mechanisms of Guinier-Preston zone hardening (GP-COAT)
G2C – Circular Pathways for Fossil-Free Lime Production and Low-Carbon Cement from Gypsum (G2C)
CAVE – Interoperable Collaboration of Autonomous Vehicles and Machines for Efficient Mining Operations
CrownAnalytics – CrownAnalytics
PyroMet – Energy-efficient processes in pyrometallurgy: Metadata extraction from CFD for optimization
CiFiM – Circular Filler Metals: Using industrial by-products in welding applications (CiFiM)
PyroTex – End-of-Life Textile based Biocarbon Concept for the Iron- and Steel Industry
SMART_FORM – Sustainable, Model-based AI for Robust Forming? (SMART-FORM)
AS BUILT – AS-BUILT: Advanced Surfaces – Built Using In-process Layer Tailoring
MIND OFP – Material variation handling through a digital NDT-measurement cell
RESCUE LINK – Autonomous Rescue & Connectivity Restoration in Underground Mines (RESCUE-LINK)
Valor Slag – ValorSlag: Valorisation of Steel Slag for Circular, Low-Carbon Concrete
NAICE – Non-destructive AI enhanced online grain size evaluation (NAICE)
INFRACIRC – Reuse of Welded Metallic Structures: Towards Infrastructure with Circularity – INFRACIRC
VarSkrotgård – Variable scrapyard for resilient and sustainable material supply to foundries
ReLFP – Bench-Scale Development of Battery-Grade LFP Recycling for Circular Material Recovery (ReLFP)
LaddarBerg – Sensing What You Load: Real-Time Rock Sizing for Smarter Mining
Cirmag – Circular magnesium – business models for industrial resilience
CIRAM – Circular use of multi-component aluminium materials
AITHOS – AI-based Trapping characterisation & Hydrogen mOdelling in Steels (AITHOS)
SimSeAl – Thermodynamic Simulation Tools for the Design of Low Carbon Secondary Aluminium Alloys
AIMPACT – AI-Assisted Prediction of the Metal AM Process Chain in Titanium
SJVL-PPII – Grinding sludge to Ferrous chloride, Hydrogen and Alloy concentrates – Pilot and Process design for Industrial Implementation
