(Credit: Electra)In order to produce iron through a process using electricity that emits no carbon emissions, Electra has raised $85 million in its aims to help decarbonize steel and other heavy industries.
The company produces low-temperature iron from commercial and low-grade ores using zero-carbon intermittent electricity coming from renewable sources. The process developed by Electra electrochemically refines iron ore into pure iron at 140 degrees Fahrenheit, then converts the iron to steel using electric-powered arc furnaces.
The funding round comes from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Amazon, BHP Ventures, Temasek, Baruch Future Ventures, and others. Electra is based in Boulder, Colorado, with a development facility in Boston.
Nearly 70% of steel is made at approximately 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit, Electra says. That process uses an amble amount of coal and emits about 2 tons of carbon dioxide for every ton of steel produced. Overall, the steel industry accounts for about 10% of the world’s emissions, creating 3.7 gigatons of direct and indirect carbon emissions each year, according to the company.
Finding alternative ways to produce steel to make it less carbon-intensive is a challenge some in the industry are taking on. Other programs, such as the Biden Administration’s Federal Buy Clean Initiative, are encouraging manufacturing and use of clean steel.
As part of the Federal Buy Clean Initiative, Biden in September 2022 said the United States will prioritize purchasing construction materials such as steel that have fewer embodied emissions. Additionally, the government is looking to increase the transparency of manufacturers and their supply chains in tracking and reporting emissions.
Recently more than 200 companies in carbon-intensive industries, including many steelmakers, endorsed strategies from the Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) to work toward decarbonization. MPP estimates that commercialization of net-zero technologies for steel production would cost up to $200 billion per year with a higher demand for hydrogen, renewable electricity, and natural gas to produce cleaner materials.
Several steel companies, including US Steel, Steel Dynamics, Nucor, and ArcelorMittal, have recently worked toward a cleaner product through building sustainable facilities, using recycled scrap, and electric arc furnaces, among other advances.
Electra’s production process uses oxygen-decoupled electrolysis to help eliminate carbon emissions in steelmaking. It also allows the use of lower-grade iron ore that is not typically used in the production process or is treated as waste, the company says.
“Similar to the shortage of high-quality steel scrap, there is a likely shortfall of very low impurity iron ore in forms suitable to feed a transitioning, decarbonizing iron and steel sector,” says Simon C. Wandke, an iron ore industry expert and an advisor to Electra. “The potential to use iron ore inputs with high impurity levels including phosphorous, silica, and alumina without any beneficiation, reduces the overall cost of steelmaking, reduces the upstream carbon and ESG footprint, and creates new sources of economic value for the iron ore producers."
Electra is using electrochemical and hydrometallurgical methods, which can provide a sustainable way for minerals recovery, to reach industrial scale for green iron production. The company will complete a green iron refining pilot plant at its Boulder headquarters in 2023 and plans to have a commercial-scale demonstration plant in place during the second half of this decade.
