NEW technology that can quickly detect any flaws during steel production could boost the beleaguered industry in the UK and Europe.

The imaging system is being developed by scientist Dr Manuch Soleimani who believes it will have a huge impact on steel making.

“This is an exciting and yet very challenging project that will have a great impact in helping in the competitive production of high quality steel, which is very important for the sustainable future of the UK and European steel industry,” said Soleimani, who has just been awarded an EU Horizon 2020 grant for the Shell Thick project. It is being developed at Bath University to detect flaws in molten steel as it solidifies.

The technology will be able to provide images of the steel as it cools so that any defects can be corrected immediately.

By doing so, it will improve the costs, safety, quality, productivity and competitiveness of the steel industry in Europe.

The imaging technique, which is called induction tomography, is already used in civil engineering, medical diagnostics and geophysical exploration.

It is hoped it will help the threatened steel industry in the UK hold its own against the highly subsidised steel of China that is currently flooding the market.

Troubled Indian conglomerate Tata Steel last week handed over the keys of two Lanarkshire steel plants to metals firm Liberty House, six months after announcing the mothballing of the sites with the loss of 270 jobs.

The plants – Dalzell in Motherwell and Clydebridge in Cambuslang – were secured last month in a ‘’back to back’’ agreement, involving the Scottish Government buying them from Tata Steel, and immediately selling them on to Liberty.

However, emergency talks are currently being held to prevent the closure of the Tata plant at Port Talbot in Wales, the UK’s largest steel plant.

Meanwhile, the executive chairman of Liberty House, which has expressed interest in buying the rest of Tata’s UK steel operations in England and Wales, has said he is not “married” to the plan and could still walk away.

Sanjeev Gupta, the founder of Liberty House – the only company to publicly express an interest in purchasing Tata’s ailing plants – said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph that the company would not take on any plants that meant it would sustain losses as it was “not our business model”.

The Tata Group announced it planned to sell off its loss-making UK steel empire on launching crisis talks with Business Secretary Sajid Javid in a bid to ensure it was a “responsible seller”.

Gupta said that changes, including switching from blast furnaces to electrically powered furnaces that melt scrap steel in Tata’s Port Talbot plant, could produce “a very clear opportunity to turn things around, make money and create a sustainable business”.

But he said: “I feel passionately about this and would like to do it, but I am not married to it.

“It is too big a deal for us to get wrong. It could put the whole company at risk.”

Gupta added that he had not yet engaged with Tata’s owners and that, while he did not anticipate job losses, he said he understood taking on the plants would not be easy but that he was “not expecting it to cost a lot”.