He started his professional career between 1976 and 1979 as a research associate in the Department of Industrial Furnaces and Heat Engineering of RWTH Aachen University. He then took positions in the steel industry from 1979 till 2002. He first served at Vereinigte Deutsche Metallwerke as manager quality and research of the melt shop Unna. Since 1987 he headed the metallurgical department of Krupp Nirosta (later ThyssenKrupp Nirosta).

After habilitation In 1998 he became, in addition to his industrial activity, private lecturer (Privat-Dozent) at the RWTH Aachen for the topic Metallurgy and High Temperature Reaction Technique. In 2002, Piotr Scheller accepted the call for the Chair of Iron and Steel Metallurgy at TU Bergakademie Freiberg in Saxony. Until January 2012 he headed the Institute for Iron and Steel Technology which can look back on a long and important history. He also served as the dean of the Faculty for Materials Science and Materials Engineering, he initiated collaborations between the TU Freiberg and universities in Poland, China, South Korea, Sweden and Ukraine. In 2011 he received the »Medal of Honor« from the Academy for Mining and Metallurgy Krakow for his scientific achievements in Saxony-Polish cooperation. During his active time in Freiberg he built up a laboratory with the most modern experimental techniques for the measurements of surface tension and viscosities of molten phase at steelmaking temperatures along with numerous other experimental equipment. Since his retirement he has been invited as visiting professor by a number of famous universities in the world.

His achievements in the scientific field are comprehensive and very diverse. Based on industrial experiments, Piotr Scheller described the flow behavior in the ladle and delivered important contributions to the kinetics of nitrogen transfer between gas and Cr-Ni-alloys. The precipitation of non-metallic inclusions especially in the continuous casting process was the starting point for the investigation of the interfacial phenomena between liquid steel and slag. In fact, his contributions in the area of interfacial phenomena and the application of the same in process metallurgy are extremely important in modelling various two phase reactions in metallurgical processes. Professor Scheller has been author of ca. 200 publications in reputed journals in the field of process metallurgy. His contributions to the book “Treatise on Process Metallurgy”, Elsevier publications, both as section editor as well as a contributor to several chapters, are highly significant. The 2nd edition of this book, scheduled early 2024, will see further contributions of him. He is owner of 6 patents/patent applications in the field if iron and steelmaking.

This special issue in steel research international is dedicated to Professor Scheller on the occasion of his 75th birthday in 2024. We hope for many future meetings with this charming scientist and wish him many fruitful years to come.