Mr. van Doesburg, Dr. Özkan, you presented your new ATLAS Green hybrid furnace to the public for the first time last September to mark the company’s 75th anniversary. Six months later, in April 2024, ATLAS Green was already honored with the German Innovation Award 2024. What is special about your new hybrid furnace concept?

Paul van Doesburg: For many years, the question was asked again and again: What can we as furnace manufacturers do to make the processes in the hardening industry more energy-efficient and therefore more energy-saving? The answer is hybrid heating. With ATLAS Green, we have implemented this hybrid heating concept, namely operating a furnace with both gas and electrical energy, in a holistic and maximally sustainable way for the first time.

hp: What exactly do you mean by maximum sustainability?

Dr. Bora Özkan: One key technical point is very important in this context: ATLAS Green not only heats with either electricity or gas. If required, it also heats with both electricity and gas at the same time. Our hybrid furnace is characterized by the fact that it uses as much electricity as possible and then heats with gas where it is needed. In this way, it avoids electricity consumption at times when little electricity is available and is therefore more expensive. At these times, it runs on natural gas or hydrogen.

hp: Why electric heating first?

Dr. Özkan: If we want to produce CO2-neutrally in the future, we need to heat primarily with electricity, provided it can be generated by wind or solar energy at that moment. But sometimes the residual load also remains. This can be filled by direct combustion of hydrogen or by reconverting electricity via fuel cells or gas turbines. But reconverted electricity costs two to three times as much as hydrogen. In contrast to times when electricity is virtually thrown at you. And that’s where you have to be flexible.

Van Doesburg: Also of note in this context: we now have our first customer who is building his first own wind park on his site and also wants to produce hydrogen with the electricity generated. This will make them self-sufficient regarding energy intake. Customers who can supply their own energy in this way are even more flexible thanks to ATLAS Green. When we first looked at this topic, the question arose quite quickly: What is Ipsen’s impact on CO2 emissions in this world?

hp: What was your answer?

Van Doesburg: If we look at CO2 emissions, building the furnaces, scrapping the furnaces, running our factory is all small stuff compared to the products we put on the market. The heating operation of our furnaces accounts for the majority. From this point of view, the influence of furnace manufacturers on the CO2 footprint is enormous, because our furnaces run for 35 to 40 years. It quickly became clear to us that if we wanted to make a positive contribution to climate change, we would have to structure the heating of our furnaces completely differently.

hp: …and, above all, focus on the question: How can we as furnace manufacturers ensure that the products our customers use contribute to the green transformation?

Dr. Özkan: That is precisely the crux of the matter. We take a close look at what our customers need in terms of energy efficiency. We try to think from the customer’s point of view: how much energy does this customer need and where does he get it from? Traditionally, furnace manufacturers tend to ask which form of energy is required, gas or electricity and supply the required furnace. And with ATLAS Green, we now not only provide the answer: “We can do both”, but we also supply the tools on request to show our customers how to handle this in the best possible way, i.e. that software integrated in the furnace also regulates the supply independently by calculating the output ratio.

hp: So your hybrid furnace can not only use gas and electricity at the same time, it can also control the supply completely independently?

Dr. Özkan: Correct, we have access to both energy sources, gas and electricity, at the same time. We can switch gas or electricity on or off in a matter of seconds! And all without changing the overall level of heating. And even if the composition of the energy supply of gas and electricity fluctuates greatly, we can still guarantee good temperature uniformity.

hp: How does this work specifically?

Dr. Özkan: It works on two levels. I’ve just explained the first level with the split-second switchover. Now we come to the second: In most cases, we produce chamber furnaces that are loaded discontinuously. Here, the operator has an influence on exactly when specific charges are to be heated or kept at a certain temperature. Many of our processes have long holding times and only short phases in which the full amount of energy is required. Our customers can now adapt to the respective conditions. For example, when a lot of sun and wind are expected, electricity becomes cheap. The heating phases must be at these times. The second level is therefore production planning. We have developed our own software for this, Automag, which can plan the entire production.

hp: Sounds like Prognostic Foresight.

Dr. Özkan: That’s right, that’s what it’s all about. The software takes into account, for example, what has to go through immediately or whether a batch will have a higher priority, or whether a batch needs a certain furnace because it uses an oil bath with a certain type of oil. And this is where the software helps to plan cleverly. The energy requirements of each individual sub-step are also taken into account. In this way, the entire production process can be planned for maximum energy efficiency without energy peaks and with cheaply available electricity.

hp: How can the software integrate the future electricity price into its planning?

Dr. Özkan: The Association of European Transmission System Operators publishes the electricity costs for the next day every day at 12:30 pm. This day-ahead price also makes it possible to derive the proportion of green electricity reasonably well. The API of our software can access this data and incorporate it into production planning. This 24-hour rhythm also fits very well, as this is roughly how long a complete cycle usually lasts for us. From the preheating furnace to the high-temperature furnace, to washing and tempering. And so, through sensible planning, we can directly catch peaks in the availability of green electricity and schedule them into the most energy-intensive processes.

hp: Doesn’t this also allow the software to gain an unwanted in-depth insight into the customer’s data?

Dr. Özkan: Of course, it must be ensured that this does not happen. Our software for providing energy data runs independently of the respective plant network in a secure environment. It inspects only the thermal data of the plant, but not which part is being produced or in what quantity. This data is the customer’s company secret. The software only needs to keep an eye on the energy data, which must also remain traceable for the customer. There is also the planning software, to which no external access is required. This planning software can only access the energy data from the energy data software in one direction, i.e. read it, but does not pass on any data itself. It should also be said that we cannot achieve everything through planning. If the system is running at full capacity, it is difficult to optimize anything. But if the plant is running at 80 % capacity, for example, our customers can act by load shifting.

hp: From this perspective, ATLAS Green is also and above all a digital furnace and, of course, there is also a powerful digital twin for simulation purposes?

Dr. Özkan: That’s right. We work very closely with Rhein-Waal University in this area. On one hand, there are student projects on the subject there, but there is also a so-called tandem position that enables us to work in cooperation with the scientists there. They are primarily concerned with the digital twin. At the moment it is being refined there.

hp: What challenges do you want to face with the digital twin?

Dr. Özkan: We want to use the Digital Twin to see exactly which heat flows are entering or leaving the batch. This is important for planning a production facility that contains several chamber furnaces. To be able to plan ahead, the furnace operators need to know the energy requirements of the individual production steps. It is not enough to know how many kilowatt hours are required per kilogram of batch. I need to know how much energy will be required at what time. That requires a digital twin.

hp: Did you also work with the university to develop the software you use to control the furnace?

Van Doesburg: No, it was developed entirely in-house. When you outsource such a large and important project, it makes communication much more difficult. In fact, that’s putting it far too lightly. An interesting detail: We now work with more programmers in the design department than mechanical designers. When it comes to production, the mechanics of course take over, but in the first step a lot of things is done via the software. The future of furnace construction is not rocket science. You have to know the technology. You need good people who can bring technology and processing together. But the further development, what will drive us forward in the future, we can clearly see that in the software.

hp: How does the growing part of software in the product affect the service business?

Van Doesburg: The aftermarket business has traditionally been extremely important for us. It is an even bigger factor than the new systems business. The growing part of software in the product will certainly reinforce this weighting. This is also very easy to explain. Automotive companies are often not experts in furnace construction. Of course, they also have very good employees, but they tend to be specialists in machine tools, for example. Or a commercial heat treater, whose daily bread depends on furnaces, is of course very familiar with the necessary technology, but often they are simply working to capacity and don’t have the manpower to take on the maintenance themselves. As a result, the service business is naturally a large part of our daily work.

hp: Also specifically with regard to the digital sector, i.e. digital services?

Van Doesburg: It’s a question of defining what exactly digital services are. In principle, however, they are definitely part of our services, I would say not yet 50 %, but we are continuously expanding these services. For example, remote access to customers’ computers to solve problems, make changes or whatever else is needed. This is now completely normal for us.

hp: Customers are also increasingly demanding digital service expertise when it comes to CO2 verification. What is your solution here?

Dr. Özkan: Carbon plays a decisive role with Atlas Green on two fronts. Firstly, in the material use for carburizing processes and secondly in the energy supply. To reduce the material carbon consumption in the Atlas Green, an analyzer with a control system is installed that adjusts the supply of carbon according to how much is still required in the remaining process. This enables it to reduce the amount of carbon required. In addition, the system stores all the data from the processes. For example, we can see exactly how much CO2 was consumed for a particular batch during both material and energy use. This can make it much easier to certify CO2 consumption in the future. An app developed by us, which we make available, helps with this. This means that the batches can be tracked individually and very transparently and broken down by the customer.

Van Doesburg: Another important point here is ESG reporting. Our I-Care software provides exemplary support here. It helps to track exactly how much CO2 is required and consumed per batch. Good to know in these uncertain times regarding the current electricity prices, but also regarding how we deal with CO2 emissions. The flexibility and data analysis offered by ATLAS Green provides maximum security.

Dr. Özkan: Last but not least, the Recon IV burner reduces NOx emissions. We are in the range of less than 100 mg/Nm³. The WHO has lowered the values for all emissions in 2021. This process is taking a little longer in the EU, where they are still working on implementing the WHO values from 2005 in regulations. However, the NOx limits will also continue to fall here, as the EU is aware of the new WHO values. So we can no longer look at the CO2 problem in isolation, but must also tackle the NOx problem at the same time.

hp: We understand that it was probably the sum of all these innovations that convinced the jury to award you the German Innovation Award. Has the award also had an impact on sales figures?

Van Doesburg: Our order books are full. However, when it comes to new orders, we are amazed to see that since we launched the ATLAS Green in September 2023, all the furnaces we have sold have been hybrid furnaces. Customers who heat with gas are now buying hybrid furnaces and customers who heat with electricity are also buying hybrid furnaces. This shows that we have hit a gap in the market. It is important to mention once again that the hybrid component can be switched on or off on a modular basis according to the customer’s needs. This is obviously what the market is now demanding.