The HELIOS – MSCA DN project welcomes Mert Saraçoğlu to the team as DC6 at KU Leuven. Mert Saraçoğlu will take on research about the use of hydrogen plasma as an alternative reducing agent for the reduction of Cr2O3-containing slag in the Decarburization (AOD) process for sustainable stainless-steel production at KU LEUVEN in collaboration with Aperam Stainless Steel and K1-MET GmbH.
Mert is an extractive metallurgist who specializes in pyrometallurgical recovery of metals. He is passionate about slag optimization, material characterization, and the thermodynamics of metallurgy to provide sustainable and greener metal production. He has worked on recycling valuable metals from different waste sources by using and constructing a “DIY” arc furnace and slag studies.
He did both his B.Sc. and M.Sc. at Istanbul Technical University, with over 6 years of experience in extractive metallurgy. Currently, he is working on constructing a hydrogen-vacuum plasma smelting reduction furnace for the HELIOS project and investigating the AOD slag formation using advanced characterization techniques such as Electron Probe Micro-analyzer (EPMA).
For more details about the HELIOS Project (Doctoral Network on the adoption of Hydrogen mEtalLurgy In the climate-neutral production Of Steel) please visit the Project page.
