The Daily Populous Monday October 6th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by swissinfo.ch and submitted by ahothabeth

World’s first solar furnaces for steel recycling open in Switzerland

World's first solar furnaces for steel recycling in La Chaux-de-Fonds Keystone-SDA

Listen to the article Listening the article Toggle language selector Select your language Close English (US)

English (British) Generated with artificial intelligence. Close Share

The Jura-based company Panatere has inaugurated the world’s first two solar furnaces in La Chaux-de-Fonds, canton Neuchâtel, that will produce fully recycled steel. The company calls it a project of “true circular sustainability”.

Keystone-SDA Other language: 1 Deutsch de Weltweite erste Solaröfen für Stahl-Recycling in La Chaux-de-Fonds Original Read more: Weltweite erste Solaröfen für Stahl-Recycling in La Chaux-de-Fonds

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

“There is a real interest in recycling our valuable resources. We want to keep the metal waste from the factories and recycle it locally,” Panatere CEO Raphaël Broye told the Keystone-SDA news agency. There are currently 54 solar ovens worldwide, but the oven inaugurated on Friday is the first to recycle metal waste.

This innovation offers an answer to the challenges of sovereignty and sustainability, the company explained. Every year, Switzerland imports 140,000 tonnes of stainless steel, including 15,800 tonnes for the watchmaking industry and 6,500 tonnes for the medical sector.

+ Why Switzerland is not the best at recycling waste

The sorting process by alloy and the solar furnace are protected by two patents. The furnace uses 500 concave mirrors and a heliostat to focus the sun’s rays and reach temperatures of up to 2,000°C. With this technology, metals can be melted down in 1.5 hours, completely without CO2 emissions

1,000 tonnes of solar steel per year

“Our goal is to recover 5% of the metals produced in Switzerland instead of exporting them. By 2028, the centre should be producing 1,000 tonnes of solar steel per year,” added Broye. This should also create local jobs.

The project also paves the way for the future development of a solar centre for processing strategic metals.

“We have received the support of various institutional partners to realise this project, including the Federal Office for the Environment, the cantons of Neuchâtel, Jura and Bern, SIG (Services Industriels de Genève), the Swiss Climate Foundation and Energy Lab,” explained the CEO.

The first solar steel bar will be exhibited at the International Watch Museum in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Panatere, based in Saignelégier, canton Jura, is an SME specialising in the processing and recycling of metallic raw materials. The name Panatere comes from the Patois and refers to a wicker basket in which valuable harvests are collected.

How we work We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone. If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch

WhipItGoodie on October 6th, 2025 at 12:46 UTC »

Huh, that's legit cool af imo. Dunno why we didn't think of this sooner tbh. Like, duh, let's just harness the giant ball of fiery energy in the sky to melt our trash. It's about freaking time we started using technology to save the planet, not just make memes. Let's hope more countries get on board asap.

YsoL8 on October 6th, 2025 at 10:06 UTC »

If you told someone even 10 years ago that you could pull enough energy out of solar to drive a steel furnace they'd probably look at you strange.

Jindujun on October 6th, 2025 at 09:51 UTC »

So, using a death ray to melt steel beams!