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Today August 30, 2026

Green Steel

Europe's green hydrogen DRI race accelerates as first commercial plants come online

Three new direct-reduction iron facilities in Sweden and Germany have begun commercial operations using green hydrogen, marking a turning point for decarbonisation of primary steel production — but cost parity with conventional blast furnace routes remains a decade away.

By A. Sanlı & K. Verbeken · Analysis · 4 min read

Industrial Symbiosis

Synferro model shows 40% CO₂ reduction when cement kilns consume EAF slag

New lifecycle assessment quantifies the symbiosis benefit of routing electric arc furnace slag into blended cement production.

Bauxite & Red Mud

RemovAL project reaches milestone: first tonne of scandium recovered from Greek red mud

EU-funded consortium reports commercially viable rare earth extraction from Mytilineos bauxite residue ponds.

Policy Watch

Critical Raw Materials Act: Commission publishes first national benchmarking scorecards

Member states ranked on domestic extraction, recycling capacity, and supply chain diversification — Belgium scores above average on secondary recovery.

3 min read

Circular Economy

Alkali-activated concrete in bridge decks: 10-year performance data from Belgian trial installations

Longitudinal study from KU Leuven confirms durability parity with Portland cement systems in outdoor exposure conditions.

5 min read

Most Read

1

Oxalic acid leaching of bauxite residue: from lab to pilot scale — a critical assessment

Research Article · JSM 2025
2

Thermodynamic stability of iron-rich geopolymer gels at elevated temperature

Research Article · JSM 2026
3

Why industrial symbiosis may be the missing link in net-zero steel

Perspectives · JSM 2026
4

Microwave treatment of bauxite residue: mineralogical transformations and leachability

Research Article · JSM 2025
5

Slag-based LC3 binders: reactivity, compressive strength and CO₂ footprint

Research Article · JSM 2026
6

Multi-objective optimisation of supplementary cementitious material blends

Review · JSM 2025

Events Full calendar →

Sep

Conference

SMA Annual Meeting 2026

📍 KU Leuven, Belgium · 15–17 September

The flagship annual gathering of the sustainable metallurgy community. Plenary lectures, working group sessions, and an industry exhibition.

Oct

Online

Circular Metals Symposium

🌐 Online · 22 October 2026

Half-day symposium focused on industrial symbiosis between the metallurgical and cement sectors. Case studies from Belgium, Germany, and South Africa.

Jan

Winter School

Winter School on Slag Chemistry & Valorisation

📍 KU Leuven, Belgium · 12–16 January 2027

Five-day intensive course for PhD students and early-career researchers. Topics: thermodynamics, characterisation methods, binder applications, and LCA.

Apply for a place →

Opinions & Perspectives All opinions →

Diran Apelian

WPI · JSM Editor

"Circularity is not recycling — and we need to stop conflating the two"

The distinction matters enormously for how we design policy, fund research, and measure industrial progress toward a genuine circular metals economy.

Maria García

IMDEA Materials · Madrid

The EU Critical Raw Materials Act is well-intentioned but structurally incomplete

Without binding secondary production targets, the CRMA risks becoming a monitoring exercise rather than a transformational industrial policy instrument.

Bart Blanpain

KU Leuven · JSM Editor

Thermodynamics will constrain the green transition — and metallurgists should say so louder

Entropy penalties on dispersed metal streams are real, irreducible, and largely absent from net-zero roadmaps. Our community has a duty to quantify them.

Sun Yiming

Tsinghua University

China's blast furnace transition: why the timeline is shorter than Western analysts think

Regulatory pressure, scrap availability, and electricity grid decarbonisation are converging faster in China than most external projections acknowledge.

Academia Browse JSM →

Research Article

Mechanochemical activation of mixed-phase slags: reaction kinetics, phase evolution, and binder performance

Using planetary ball milling and synchrotron XRD, we characterise the amorphisation rate and early hydration behaviour of vitreous GGBS–Ti slag blends across a range of activation energies and grinding times. Results demonstrate a non-linear relationship between specific surface area and compressive strength gain at 28 days.

Latest Articles

Review

Geopolymer binders from non-ferrous slags: a 20-year progress report

Rahier · Blanpain · JSM 2026
Research

CFD modelling of tuyere injection in a modern blast furnace with hydrogen co-injection

Zhang et al. · JSM 2026
Technical Note

Fe²⁺/Fe³⁺ ratio determination in complex slag matrices by Mössbauer spectroscopy

Pontikes et al. · JSM 2026

Special Issue

Vol. 12 · Issue 2

Bauxite Residue Valorisation: State of the Art

14 articles · Guest editors: Y. Pontikes & G. Komnitsas
Read the issue →

Technology

Wave Aluminium's microwave treatment system enters commercial demonstration at Aughinish Alumina

The MET technology, which uses targeted microwave energy to modify the mineralogy of bauxite residue, moves from pilot to a 50 t/day demonstration line in Ireland.

Partner content · 18 May 2026

Case Study

How Heidelberg Materials is integrating GGBS into low-carbon concrete mix designs at scale

A detailed account of the formulation, testing, and commercial deployment of GGBS-rich concretes across 12 European markets, with lessons for supply chain logistics.

5 min read · 15 May 2026

Market Intelligence

Secondary aluminium demand to double by 2035 driven by EV lightweighting — but scrap quality is the bottleneck

A new McKinsey report projects explosive growth in recycled aluminium demand but warns that contamination management and alloy sorting remain unresolved at scale.

6 min read · 13 May 2026