PhD in Electrical Arc Furnace (EAF) Steelmaking Slag and its Utilisation

University of Warwick

Placed On: 19th September 2025

Closes: 9th April 2026

Funding Source: EPSRC Industrial Doctoral Landscape Award (IDLA)

Eligibility: Available to home fee status and UK domicile EU students

Supporting Company: Tata Steel UK

Supervisors: University of Warwick: Prof. Zushu Li, Dr Zhiming Yan, Tata Steel UK: Dr Ciaran Martin, Dr Bin Xiao

Start date: October 2025 (or earlier)

Project Overview:

An enthusiastic researcher is invited to join a team to work on the EPSRC Industrial Doctoral Landscape Award project in collaboration with industrial partner Tata Steel UK. The project aims to advance fundamental knowledge on the impact of residual elements inherited from steel scrap on slag performance and utilisation in the scrap-based electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking. The research will support the steel industry’s transition to net-zero steel manufacturing and enhance the high-value utilisation of the new EAF steelmaking slags.

Transition to scrap-based EAF steelmaking, by using a high percentage of scrap supplemented with ore based metallics (OBMs), is an attractive route to decarbonise the steelmaking process. However, residual elements inherited from scrap may significantly alter slag performance during steelmaking and the slag utilisation. The residual elements inherited from steel scrap such as Cu, Cr, Ni, Zn, Sn, and Pb, along with alloying elements from the OBMs like V and Mn (which depends on the iron ore sources) will be distributed between the steel, slag and dust during EAF steelmaking. The presence of these residual elements in the slag may influence its physical and chemical properties, including composition, viscosity, surface tension, electrical conductivity, which in turn affects the slag refining performance (e.g. desulphurisation, dephosphorisation, residual elements removal, slag foaming) and the overall EAF steelmaking process.

Effective utilisation of the scrap-based EAF slags will be significantly affected by the oxide states and levels of those residual elements. Potential destinations of EAF slags include industrial waste landfills, and reuse/recycling (e.g. returning to the steel production process, high-value recycling). Industrial waste landfill will result in considerable costs to the steelmaker and should be avoided. For the high-value reuse/recycling, it is crucial to understand the phases in which residual elements exist, their behaviours during slag utilisation, and how they can be converted to amorphous phases or recovered. These challenges remain largely unexplored.

This research will be carried out by using the world-leading research facilities (high temperature experiment, advanced characterisation and modelling) at the Advanced Steel Research Centre of WMG, the University of Warwick. This PhD studentship offers a unique opportunity to work on the exciting topic with the leading scientists at Tata Steel UK.

Essential and Desirable Criteria:

A 1st or 2:1 undergraduate (BEng, BSc, MEng) and/or postgraduate masters’ qualification (MSc) in a science and technology field such as Metallurgy, Chemical Engineering, ceramics, Materials Science and Engineering, Manufacturing, Physics, Chemistry,

A passion and enthusiasm to challenge the state-of-the-art and to apply the world leading research facilities for the creation of critical knowledge and its industrial applications.