Sweden stands today with major challenges to reduce the impact on the climate and the environment. A big part of managing to achieve a sustainable society is to reduce energy consumption. Today the industry accounts for one third of Sweden's energy consumption and in the steel industry, there is great potential to make energy savings.

There are around hundred steel mills in Sweden and these produce a large amount of steel every year. In the manufacturing process, when the steel is tapped into ladles there is formed at thin layer of unwanted residue on the top of the ladle. This product is called slag. The residue product that is not used is scraped to a slag ladle. When this process is performed, follows steel of finer quality in to the ladle. The finer the quality of the steel burns a hole in the slag ladles that can be about 300-500 millimetres in diameter.

With the current technology, are the slag ladles repaired using MIG/MAG welding. This method is well established in the steel industries. The method is a rather slow process of welding, the techniques must sit and the repairing takes about five weeks. The process is both inefficient, energy- intensive and expensive. Which also results in a big impact on the climate and the environment.

Thomas Lindberg is an inventor who had an idea. All repair and splicing of railway track using a method called Termite welding. The method applies a composition of iron and aluminium powder is heated and forms a volume of molten metal in a short time. Thomas thought that this method would be well suited to the repair slag ladles in the steel industries. The method works well and there have been thoughts that the method has significant advantages over MIG/MAG welding.

Therefore, these two methods were compared regarding of the time consumption, energy consumption and energy costs.

To analyze the methods there were interviews including welding techniques and the calculations was based on a general steel mill in Sweden.

The study showed that the Lindberg method was is a good alternative to MIG/MAG welding with better characteristics regarding; time consumption, energy consumption and energy costs.