Photo credit: Boston Metal
Boston Metal is pushing a revolutionary steel-making process that could give the industry independence from polluting blast furnaces.
In fact, the company’s molten oxide electrolysis innovation won Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award in the climate category.
“We’re developing a solution that can completely replace the blast furnace,” Adam Lauwerdink, Boston Metal’s senior vice president of business development, said in a Fast Company article.
Though iron smelting has been around for centuries, making steel is a highly polluting process that currently accounts for more than 10% of the air pollution that contributes to global warming. The process involves separating ore into its iron and oxygen core. Pure iron can then be turned into steel. Production is dominated by coal-burning furnaces and cleaner electric arc furnaces, according to reports from Fast Company, ScienceDirect, and others.
Boston Metal’s process is fossil-fuel free, using renewable electricity to electrolyze ore and turn it into steel-quality metal. The simplified technology involves temperatures of about 2,912 degrees Fahrenheit and specialized chemical reactions. A rendering of the mechanism looks like a battery, with an anode, a cathode and an electrolyte. When powered, oxygen bubbles up and high-quality iron can be harvested.
But the key to this breakthrough is what it doesn’t contain: There’s no air pollution or “other harmful by-products.” The method also requires no “process water” or chemicals. The technology can refine any grade of ore, making it a viable option for scale-up. The company plans to commercialize the innovation by 2026, according to its website.
“This one-step process is much simpler than typical smelting and produces no carbon by-products — and if the electricity comes from renewable sources, there are no carbon emissions at all,” Fast Company’s Jessica Hallinger wrote.
The World Economic Forum predicts that global demand for steel will grow 30% by 2050. To capitalize on the market, Boston Metal has secured $282 million in funding and a $50 million government grant. The latter investment will help pay for a plant being built in West Virginia to make chrome and other metals, which is expected to create hundreds of jobs, according to Fast Company.
“Jobs are being lost in the steel industry so it is important to bring jobs back to the region,” Lauwerdink said in the report.
The development of cleaner steel-making processes has also attracted attention from Bill Gates, who is investing in a Colorado project that smelts ore at much lower temperatures, similar to the temperature needed to heat coffee.
If one of these methods could be scaled up to reduce or eliminate 7 to 10 percent of global air pollutants, it would be a major win for the planet and the creatures that breathe its air. Government health experts call air pollution a “high-impact” health hazard, particularly to the lungs. Air pollution in all forms is responsible for 6.5 million deaths worldwide each year, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
Meanwhile, Boston Metal is also making money using its technology to turn mining waste into useful metals at its Brazilian facility, but its goal is to make cleaner steel, according to Fast Company.
“Steel is the big prize,” Lauwerdink said.
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