The association between Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Steel is a perfect example of “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. The companies have announced that they have jointly developed a way to reuse the wastewater sludge generated from the semiconductor manufacturing process and use it for steelmaking.
One of the processes involve using fluorite to remove any impurities and lower the melting point during the steelmaking process but the new tech jointly developed allows fluorite to be substituted with calcium fluoride found in the sludge.
This breakthrough enables Hyundai Steel to reduce their import of fluorite from South America by 50% annually and help Samsung find alternate use of the waste, thus reducing the negative impact on the environment.
Samsung aims to achieve 100% waste recycling rate in the future.
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