The World’s First Solar Furnace for Steel Recycling Enters Service in Switzerland

The Swiss company Panatere has commissioned the world’s first two solar-powered steel recycling furnaces. This will allow scrap steel to be melted and recycled without emitting carbon emissions.

The Swiss company Panatere launched the world’s first two solar-powered steel melting and recycling furnaces on October 3rd in La Chaux-de-Fonds, the historic heart of the watchmaking industry.

These pilot-scale systems are designed to reprocess stainless steel waste generated by local watch manufacturers and medical device producers. Both sectors are known for their high-precision engineering applications and intensive use of steel.

How the System Works

This innovative method can melt stainless steel by reaching temperatures of up to 1,450°C using energy derived solely from sunlight, without using any fossil fuels.

In the larger-scale prototype, a 138 m² heliostat consisting of 40 movable mirrors tracks the sun and directs the light toward a 10-meter-diameter concave concentrator. The smaller system features a 30 m² heliostat and a compact 12 m² concentrator made up of approximately 460 mirrors. The concentrated light is transferred to a crucible inside the solar reactor, where the metal scraps are melted and reformed into ingots. Both furnaces use a two-stage process that captures sunlight and intensifies its concentration by thousands of times at the focal point.

Loïc Bonsack, Project Manager for Innovation and Industrialization at Panatere, stated that the company will focus on the smaller but more efficient second design moving forward. He added that this system will concentrate sunlight 5,500 times, reaching temperatures of up to 2,000°C.

The company will continue to test and develop the technology in collaboration with local firms over the next few years. They plan to open a full-scale factory by 2028, either at the current site or in the Wallis mountains of Switzerland.

Once the facility is operational, it will be possible to produce 1,000 tons of recycled steel per year using only solar energy. This will significantly reduce carbon emissions, marking an important step toward a circular economy.

Traditionally, the recycling of 1 kg of steel leads to approximately 6.8 kg of CO2​ emissions. Panatere estimates that its new technology can reduce this amount to just 41 grams, cutting the carbon footprint by 165 times.

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