Page 34 - Materials Australia - April 2019

INDUSTRY NEWS
BREAKING NEWS
‘Real Steel’ But Takes 90% Less Energy to Make
Steel can be made using 90% less energy than in the most common production process, but very few companies are pursuing this more environmentally-friendly method because the science behind it has not been well understood.
University of South Australia Associate Research Professor Nikki Stanford is changing that through research that explains the exact behaviour of steel using thin strip casting.
The method involves turning liquid steel directly into thin strips up to 3mm thick, rather than the traditional process which involves steel casting, hot and cold rolling (including reheating), coil coating and strip processing. A gigatonne of steel sheeting (1000 million tonnes) is made every year for use in roofing, fencing, car doors and general construction and that figure is growing.
Changes to this new method is a massive environmental benefit. While the traditional process of repeatedly forging and rolling steel into the required shape is understood, the same cannot be said
of the thin strip casting method. In strip casting, the steel is cast between two water-cooled rolls, producing a strip. This results in very rapid cooling and high production speeds. There is a need to expand the kinds of alloys that can be made using this process.
The strip casting method can also make stronger steel, requiring less steel in finished products, reducing weight and associated costs.
Associate Professor Stanford was appointed as part of a new $2 million fellowship program aiming to increase the number of female researchers in the Future Industries Institute. In partnership with the University of South Australia and University College London’s (UCL) Faculty of Engineering, Santos has provided
$2 million to fund the research fellowships.
Ultra-Low Energy Devices at the Flick of a Switch
Left to Right: Dr Mark Edmonds, James Collins and Professor Michael Fuhrer have for the first time successfully ‘switched’ a topological insulator off and on via an electrical field.
Researchers at Monash University are one step closer to providing a global solution to minimising the energy wasted by modern telecommunications and computing – simply by the flick of a switch.
Professor Michael Fuhrer, Dr Mark Edmonds and James Collins from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Monash University have for the first time successfully ‘switched’ a topological insulator off and on via application of an electrical field.
This announcement, published recently in one of the world’s leading science journals Nature, is a major advancement towards the creation of a functioning topological transistor. Topological transistors would burn much less energy than conventional electronics.
“Ultra-low energy electronics, such as topological transistors, would allow computing to continue to grow without being limited by available energy. This becomes extremely important as we near the end of achievable improvements in traditional, silicon-based electronics,” said Professor Fuhrer.
“Information and communications technology already consumes 8% of global electricity; a figure that is doubling every decade. To solve this problem, we need to develop a new type of transistor that burns less energy when it switches.”
“This discovery makes an important contribution in the direction of topological transistors that could transform the world of computation.”
The research was conducted through FLEET (The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Future Low-Energy Electronics Technology) – a collaboration of more than 100 researchers at seven Australian universities and 13 Australian and international science organisations.
34 | APRIL 2019
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