AIM is glad to announce the 9th European Coke and Ironmaking Congress (ECIC) to be held in Bardolino, Italy, on 16-18 October 2024.  

ECIC 2024 will focus on the newest technologies in coke making, sintering, pelletizing, pyrolizing the biomasses and ironmaking (blast furnaces, direct reduction and carbon-based smelting processes). 

The 2025 goal of carbon neutrality and the related intensive efforts of the steel industry will affect  significantly the technologies for iron ore reduction. In this perspective, the shortage of iron ores  matching the requirement for direct reduction by gas and for melting in electric arc furnace makes important proposal of new technologies and devices that can ensure the carbon neutrality even for the coal based routes.  

This congress will focus on technologies that can achieve such a goal improving the efficiency of the existing process, applying the devices that avoid a net emission of green house gases and to point out new routes based on exploitation of biomasses whose net emission is intrinsically neutral. 

Background 
The Coke and Ironmaking events started separately as the European Ironmaking Congress (EIC) in 1986 in Aachen, Germany, and in 1991 in Glasgow, Scotland, and as the International Cokemaking Congress (ICMC) in 1987 in Essen, Germany, and in 1992 in London, England.  
The merger of these two events took place in 1996 as the European Coke and Ironmaking Congress (ECIC) in Gent, Belgium. 

1st EIC – Aachen, 1986 
1st ICMC – Essen, 1987 
2nd EIC - Glasgow ,1991 
2nd ICMC – London, 1992  
3rd ECIC – Gent, 1996 
4th ECIC – Paris, 2000 
5th ECIC - Stockholm, 2005 
6th ECIC – Düsseldorf, 2011 
7th ECIC – Linz, 2016 
8th ECIC – Bremen, 2022 

Scope and topics 
The 9th ECIC will address both fundamental research work and evaluation and plant operational 
results and plant construction. 
The Conference will bring together a wide range of experts, coming from plant operation, plant 
suppliers, universities and research institutes, who share expertise in: 
  
• Cokemaking 
• Industry 4.0 in ironmaking 
• Sintering and Pelletising 
• Direct reduction and Smelting reduction 
• Blast furnace ironmaking 

The event will provide a forum for best practise and state-of-the-art technology, new developments, new ideas and research results. 
 
For information and for being included in the Congress mailing list, please wrire to: aim@aimnet.it