TSR Recycling opens new facility in Germany

TSR Recycling has inaugurated its TSR40 processing plant in Duisburg, Germany, hosting officials about one year after it held a groundbreaking ceremony for the site. Guests included Mona Neubaur, economics and energy minister for the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW).

The metals recycling company says the plant can process up to 450,000 tons of differing input materials, including end-of-life vehicles (ELVs), mixed scrap and large household appliances, into its TSR40 recycling product.

“Using newly developed measurement, detection and separation techniques, interfering elements can be reliably identified and removed from the raw material during production and accompanying elements such as copper, nickel and chromium can be precisely determined,” TSR Recycling says.

The company says the basis for the new plant is “an innovative manufacturing process developed by TSR Recycling for the high-quality and certified recycling product TSR40, which when reused in steel production reduces CO₂ emissions and [the] use of primary raw materials and energy.”

TSR Recycling says the plant’s design is tied to a publicly funded research project called REDERS, which is based on achieving reduced CO₂ emissions by increasing the recycling rate of steel produced. “The process is being continuously further developed together with project partners VDEh-Betriebsforschungsinstitut GmbH, Hüttenwerke Krupp Mannesmann GmbH and Thyssenkrupp Steel,” TSR Recycling says.

The company also says TSR40 provides a scrap feedstock in which the proportion of recycled material in steel production can be significantly increased without any loss of quality. “The new processing plant at the Duisburg site is not only an important milestone for the entire industry but also a lighthouse project for the transformation of the steel industry and the processing branches of industry—such as the automotive industry—to more sustainable quality products,” it says.

“Decarbonizing steel production is an immense task,” says Arnd Köfler, Ph.D., chief technology officer at Germany-based Thyssenkrupp Steel. “Thanks to the high-quality processing of the steel scrap, TSR40 now opens up the possibility of using a first-class, certified product in the blast furnace for the first time. This complements our efforts to reduce CO₂ emissions, and our customers also benefit from this.”

One of those customers, Germany-based automaker Mercedes-Benz AG, also had an executive in attendance at the TSR40 plant inauguration. “The materials used in Mercedes-Benz vehicles have to meet high standards,” says Jens Rubi, head of circular economy at the automaker. “The company is researching new, resource-saving materials in order to reconcile sustainability and luxury. Here we see a major lever in the circular economy. Every action counts.”

TSR Managing Director Bernd Fleschenberg says, “Especially in times of interrupted supply chains, high-quality recycling is an essential building block for reducing dependency on primary raw materials.  In addition to the positive effects on environmental and climate protection, this is our contribution to a sustainable circularity strategy and to achieving the goals of the European Green Deal.”

“We can only succeed on the path to climate-neutral industry, raw materials and sustainable management if we use the potential of the circular economy,” Neubaur says of the NRW government. “This becomes clear once again at the processing plant for scrap steel here in Duisburg, which was created by a network of local companies. In a circular economy, we need such industrial partnerships along the value chain in order to successfully implement ambitious and groundbreaking projects.”