On September 24, 2025, during the CRU Silicon Market Forum, Anne Gry Messenlien from Elkem introduced the European project MECALO, highlighting the crucial role of silicon and the innovations supporting its sustainable production.
Silicon is a critical raw material for the green and digital transition: it is essential for renewable energy, electric vehicles and many low-energy technologies. However, producing silicon is anything but clean. The traditional process consumes huge amounts of energy and emits large volumes of CO₂, up to five kilograms for every kilogram of silicon produced. As demand continues to rise, finding a way to produce silicon sustainably has become one of the industry’s most urgent challenges.
In her presentation, Anne Gry emphasized Elkem’s commitment to reducing the climate impact of silicon production, in line with the carbon-neutrality goals set for 2050. One of the main challenges is to replace fossil carbon in the production process, exploring alternatives such as biocarbon, carbon capture and storage or innovative approaches based on reusing emitted carbon.
So the question is: what if we could turn the problem itself into part of the solution?
This is where MECALO (Metal Production with Carbon Looping) comes in: the European project proposes a “carbon looping” system that captures the CO₂ generated in furnaces and reuses it as a reducing agent in the production of silicon and manganese. This approach aims to maintain the efficiency of current processes while cutting net emissions and fostering a circular carbon economy.
MECALO sets ambitious goals by addressing key challenges such as optimizing gas conversion, raw material synthesis, producing silicon and manganese with reused carbon and assessing overall sustainability. These efforts are supported by advanced digital tools and demonstrated at pre-industrial scale.
With the contribution of a wide European consortium, MECALO represents an important step toward more sustainable and resilient metal production, supporting the green and digital transition in Europe and beyond.
The full presentation is available here.