A study was conducted on steel scrap melting in a continuous process rotary melting furnace, which was envisioned as a replacement for the electric arc furnace in steelmaking operations. A bench-scale rotary furnace was designed and constructed, followed by a campaign of copper melting trials to explore aspects of furnace operation such as oxygen enrichment and slag thickness. The operational data was employed to validate the heat-transfer model developed as a part of this work. The model was then used to evaluate commercial viability of industrial-scale furnaces with melting rates in order of 100 ton h(-1) and 200 ton h(-1). (c) 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.