Slags and fluxes in modern metallurgy

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Modern metallurgy encompasses more than just the metal; slags and fluxes are crucial in obtaining materials essential to our technical society. Slags are vital for copper production and aluminum recycling, enabling the treatment of complex raw materials like spent lithium-ion batteries and electronic scrap. Understanding their structure, composition, and application is key to developing new processes. A significant scientific community investigates the thermophysical properties of slags, while others focus on processing, solidification, and forming target metals. For effective metallurgical process design and optimization, it's essential to examine both metal and slag phases, particularly their interaction at the metal-slag interface. Over the past decade, initiatives at the Department of Electrometallurgy of Donetsk National Technical University and IME Process Metallurgy and Metal Recycling at RWTH Aachen University have aimed to deepen the understanding of metal-slag interactions. This research spans basic interfacial phenomena to designing new slag compositions for modern processes, emphasizing thermochemical interactions and reaction kinetics. A workshop in Yalta brought together two renowned research teams to exchange ideas, compare methodologies, and enhance understanding across geographical and linguistic boundaries.