Presenters at the ICME Northern Branch Technical Seminar 2026 with ICME national president Andrew Laing FICME, second left
Value chains, process efficiency enhancements, hydrogen as an energy source, reduction of waste streams and new commercial opportunities were the talking points at the ICME Northern Branch Technical Seminar – held at the AMRC, Sheffield (UK) on 14th May 2026.
Branch faithful Steve Illingworth kicked off proceedings, welcoming delegates and thanking the event sponsor Omega Sinto Foundry Machinery Ltd for their “much appreciated” support.
In addition to the seven presentations given during the day’s proceedings, delegates also had plenty of opportunities to network with each other and the speakers, and the chance to take part in a guided tour of the AMRC foundry facility.
To start, Lewis Peak of Omega Sinto put sand under the spotlight with a presentation entitled ‘Omega reclamation solutions: proven systems and future innovations.’ He spoke of the options available for mechanical primary and secondary reclamation for alkaline phenolic, and he looked at the technology available to reduce loss on ignition (LOI) and options for thermal reclamation. He detailed various methods to remove the waste stream and improve the properties of any residual remaining sand in the production process. He also gave an insight into the company’s new waste air heat recovery system OmegaRegen©. He finished with some data to consider for the future of heat recovery, offering full optimisation, resulting in significant payback.
Nick Evans of DEEP Manufacturing Ltd detailed the company’s ability to manufacture large scale, high quality metal component parts rapidly using wire arc additive manufacturing. “Essentially, we are welding, but at scale,” he told delegates. “We don’t consider this to be an alternative to foundries, more likely a partner. We would be an option for prototyping and short runs.” The company’s expertise lies in low volume, large metal components that are required quickly for the defence, aerospace, subsea and marine sectors. “We believe as an alternative to prototype casting, we can reduce lead time, costs and backlog, for example there are no tooling costs. We can also support other services, such as repairing components quickly and at short notice.”
Initially established to produce underwater pressure vessels for human occupancy, DEEP now offers options for large metal part production to other sectors. He explained that the fundamental advantage is the ability to use mixed materials in the same component.
Following lunch, Lee Bowers of Goodwin Steel Castings gave a presentation entitled: ‘Foundry innovation and sustainability,’ where he outlined the company’s ambitions to be carbon neutral by 2035 and the technology being adopted to meet such targets.
“We have installed eight thousand solar panels in recent years and solar now accounts for twenty per cent of our site demand,” he said. “We are currently planting 550,000 trees at a site in Mid Wales, have reduced CO2e/t by 34 per cent since 2019/2020 when we started this journey, and have improved our energy efficiency by 38 per cent.”
He highlighted how the company has established an internal dashboard system to monitor and effectively manage their energy demands, with access to constant live data. He explained how this includes active monitoring and control for all roof fans and lighting and facility emission monitoring. The live data of current emission values and subsequent alarm system helps prevent the company from exceeding environmental permit volumes.
He said: “The dashboard effectively manages our whole process. Terminals are based around the site and there is full transparency for operators.”
The foundry is in the midst of the move to a Foundry 5.0 facility, with automation goals surrounding upskilling the workforce, enhancing health and safety initiatives and increasing efficiency.
Bowers also highlighted the company’s commitment to its apprenticeship school and the high levels of apprentices employed in the foundry, machine shops and subsidiaries each year, himself having progressed from apprenticeship level.
Lorraine Ferris of Glass Futures, part of the Henry Royce Foundation at the University of Manchester, spoke about the ‘Spent Foundry Sands (SFS) Project,’ which has, to date, taken the form of a feasibility study to consider the use of SFS in the glass industry for glass production. Working with stakeholders in the foundry sector, she and colleagues have looked at the practicability of utilising SFS in glass – a relatively high value product, most probably for green glass rather than clear glass. She highlighted some of the challenges, such as encouraging engagement from foundries, and the variability of SFS (different properties from different foundries).
If considered viable, the options would be for foundries to supply the glass industry directly or for a hub and spoke set up, whereby the hub cleans up the SFS from the spokes (the foundries) and then ships to the glass manufacturer. She said: “Whilst large scale foundries could accommodate direct logistic supply, for smaller foundries the hub and spoke option would be preferable.”
Phase two will be a more detailed study involving multiple foundries and phase three would be the hub set up. She said: “There is a glass company and a waste management company that are interested in becoming the hub. But we can only progress to phase two and three with additional funding. This is not a large project, but it is worthy of the conversation. It may be that it makes more economical sense for SFS to be utilised in lower value products like cement or bricks, but it is worth the conversation.”
Richard Heath of the Cast Metals Federation (CMF) reminded delegates about the importance of behavioural safety (see page 90 of this issue) and the need to have a “robust, reliable, open door health and safety system.” He argued: “We’re still getting too many simple things wrong. Are we just getting immune to health and safety threats?”
Taking the subject of ‘Hydrogen in the foundry,’ Matthew Cawood FICME, Technical Developments, AMRC, discussed the opportunities for hydrogen use once the, soon to be released, ‘Hydrogen Strategy’ is known. “The UK will be trading on carbon footprint. We have an opportunity because many other countries are starting from a worse carbon neutral base than the UK.”
He explained that gas blending will play a part. “We will need to address how hydrogen blending into the gas network affects our production processes. Currently, hydrogen is a significant cost disadvantage but the AMRC is looking at turquoise hydrogen. Our role is to decarbonise our research facility.” The AMRC is working with Suiso, a company providing specific technology to generate hydrogen on demand (so no storage issue), and connecting to an existing natural gas supply infrastructure. “This gives the AMRC the ability to conduct research on different hydrogen levels,” he said. “The ambition is up to eighty per cent blend in the future. We are looking at converting our furnace and we will want it to be an open access facility.”
In addition to the aforementioned, Imanol Oritiz of ASK Chemicals discussed ‘Developments in feeder sleeves.’
The ICME Northern Branch would like to thank all participants and the event sponsor for their support.
Article provided by Lynn Postle, Foundry Trade Journal
