Dear Reader,

Europe’s thermoprocessing is squeezed between erratic tariffs abroad and the slow grind of its own regulatory ambitions at home.

Few people are better placed to map that terrain than Dr. Timo Würz, Managing Director of VDMA Metallurgy & Thermoprocessing and Secretary General of CECOF. In this issue’s interview, he puts numbers to the pain of a sector sliding down an inclined plane between US tariffs and Chinese subsidies, and argues that Brussels‘ flagship instruments (from CBAM to the Critical Raw Materials Act) are too often well-meant but poorly made. His verdict is sobering, but not resigned: Europe, he insists, is still the world’s largest supplier of thermoprocessing technology, if it plays its cards wisely. That same urgency runs through Nathalie Nicolas‘ editorial on behalf of CECOF, previewing the General Assembly in Brussels this October, where industry, energy and policy will meet to chart a path from decarbonisation „challenge“ to decarbonisation „opportunity.“

Our Special on heat treatment takes stock of where the discipline stands today. Prof. Dr. Rainer Fechte-Heinen of the Leibniz Institute for Materials Engineering (IWT Bremen) reflects on research priorities and the road to the HeatTreatmentCongress, which, after years in Cologne, is preparing for a new home. Around that conversation, Dr. Thomas Waldenmaier (AWT), Julian Irretier (IBW Dr. Irretier GmbH) and SAFECHEM contribute technical perspectives on corrosion-resistant steels, energy-efficient hybrid heating, and solvent cleaning as an enabler of process reliability.

Elsewhere, the issue ranges widely across process and application. Bernd Feller, Dr. Marcel Biebl, Timo Richter, Dr. Amandine Guissart and Dr. Anne Giese examine hybrid process heating through post-oxidation of fuel-gas plasma — a technology note worth watching as the industry hunts for low-carbon heat at higher temperatures. EBNER reports on the exacting demands of aluminium plate heat treatment for aerospace components, where ±2 °C accuracy is not a nice-to-have but a certification requirement. Mike Löpke and Marko Kuzmits unpack what the Cyber Resilience Act means in practice for industrial heat treatment operators, and further contributions explore hardened steels for harder times and the design challenges facing mechanical prosthetics.

The common thread, once again: the answers Europe needs are not missing. They are being built, tested and argued over in exactly the places this issue takes you.

Wishing you an inspiring and forward-looking read!