Partner Profile
VDEh Institute for Applied Research (BFI) located in Düsseldorf is one of Europe’s leading institutes for application-related research and development in the field of steel technology. To improve processes, plants and procedures in steel production, the BFI works in a practical and trustworthy manner under the guiding principle of “Close to operations. Flexible. Innovative” with its customers for over 40 years.
BFI focuses on cross-process optimisation to increase cost-effectiveness. While it is often the case that all the potentials of certain process steps have been exhausted, cross-process optimisation approaches such as Industry 4.0, material recovery or the shortening of process chains offer further opportunities to increase efficiency.
The staff of around 100 people is organized in 7 scientific departments and drives in close and interdisciplinary cooperation. 70% of the staff are scientists and engineers who guarantee, together with technicians and administrative staff, a high level of research quality and project performance.
Increasing demands on product quality, production costs, CO2 emissions and plant utilization present the steel industry with new challenges. The BFI offers tailor-made innovations along the entire process chain of steel production from the input materials to the end product. Core competencies are energy and resource management, process technology, measurement technology and process automation.
In order to achieve innovative solutions cost-efficiently, the BFI supports its industrial partners in the acquisition of funding. As a professional innovation accelerator for the steel industry, the BFI is an important player in national and international industrial research and an active member of industrial networks.
In the RollOilFree II project, BFI will investigate the lubricant performance with its 3-rolls wear-test stand, adapt the lubricant online monitoring for oil free lubricant, participate in pilot and industrial trials and will improve the lubricant care and wastewater treatment.
Our Peoples
The project team is allocated to the departments “Surface Technology” and “Resource Technology Liquid Media” which has broad expertise in tribology, material science, steel industry related process, plant analysis, process control as well as lubricant care wastewater treatment.
Delphine Rèche is the project manager at BFI of the ROF II project and she is a material engineer. She will work together with Andreas Bán (chemist) and Thorsten Hälbig (chemical engineer).
