WISE industrial projects partners – Höganäs

Cooperation between academia and industry is an important pillar in the research program WISE. Höganäs, the world leader on iron and metal powders are together with Luleå University of Technology running a research project within the WISE research program. Dimitris Chasoglou is Manager, PM Materials Development at Höganäs and Professor Marta-Lena Antti is the head researcher at LTU.

Dimitris, why is it important that Höganäs participates in the WISE research program?
-The theme of the WISE research program regarding innovative and sustainable material solutions is exactly the direction where Höganäs is moving for the future. Through WISE we have the opportunity to cooperate with academic experts on materials science and use state of the art facilities to make advancements on new and more sustainable materials.

What importance do sustainable materials have within Höganäs?
-In general, it is the topmost priority in our agenda as a company. Our target is to become the first sustainable metal powder supplier and to do that we are working proactively to minimize the greenhouse gas emissions generated in our own material productions operations as well as in the whole value chain as we aim towards our long-term net-zero target by 2037. Furthermore, the development of new products aims to improve circularity within the value chain.

What trends do you see for the future, related to customer behavior, and demands that affect you as a company?
-More sustainable materials is definitely the topic where we see the highest interest/trend right now. We have an increasing flow of enquiries and questions regarding more sustainable materials with lower CO2 footprint both from direct customers as well as the big OEM’s (especially automotive industry). This in turn means that we need to push our sustainability agenda as well both in terms of our own production but also across the whole value chain.

Marta-Lena, what benefits do you see in the cooperation from an academic point of view and what is the research problem you are looking at together?
– For us in academia it is really fun and interesting to work this closely with a company, as the research results may quickly come to direct use for Höganäs and their customers. We are learning more about the company research challenges and this broadens our perspective. The research problem that we are looking at together is an alternative alloying method for powder metal alloys, that will be more sustainable and less dependent on critical metals. One of the challenges is to maintain, or even improve, the good performance of the sintered material, such as for example hardenability.

More information about WISE IP2 call.