A New Green Steel Process Brings A 1980’s Concept To Life

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Now that the African Union has launched a massive new job-creating climate economy plan, perhaps the US should take its own climate action steps out of mothballs and give them a good airing. That may take a while, but in the meantime, US innovators and their investors are keeping the decarbonization fires lit. One good example is the Massachusetts-based green steel and metals recovery startup Boston Metal, which has socked away an impressive $400 million in financing to get its commercial operation up and running.

Green Steel And The Climate Economy Of The Future

In terms of media attention, green steel has been playing second fiddle to the transportation decarbonization movement over the years, particularly in regards to electric vehicles. Somewhat less compelling from a clickbait perspective is the carbon footprint of the materials that make up all those EVs, with steel leading the way.

Conventional steelmaking is based on coke, a derivative of coal. “Every ton of steel produced in 2018 emitted on average 1.85 tons of carbon dioxide, equating to about 8 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions,” the firm McKinsey advised back in 2020.

Cars and other automobiles are particularly sensitive to the carbon footprint of steel, EVs or no EVs. “In the United States, the automotive industry is the third-largest consumer of steel and, for some steelmakers, represents their largest revenue source,” the International Council on Clean Transportation noted earlier this year.

“As automakers expand efforts to address emissions embodied within their vehicles, manufacturers are thus well positioned to demand ‘green’ fossil-free steel and spearhead steel decarbonization efforts in the United States,” ICCT added.

The US may have dropped the ball on green steel for the time being, but other nations are picking it up. The second Africa Climate Summit, for example, concluded earlier this month with a pledge to reposition the entire continent as a climate economy hub.

Convened by the African Union and hosted by Ethiopia, ACS-2 is billed as “a critical milestone on the road to COP30 for Africa to articulate its priorities and commitments — championing home-grown solutions that are driving adaptation and systems-level shifts.”

They’re going to need green steel and plenty of it for those home-grown solutions, not only for EVs but also for solar and wind equipment among other cleantech applications.

How The 1980s Cut A New Path To Green Steel

The US may not prove fertile ground for new green steel investors over the next three years or so, but what’s a few more years when the technology has been 40 years in the making. Besides, it’s a big world out there. Regardless of the u-turn in federal climate policy, US innovators are keeping the wheels in motion elsewhere around the globe.

That’s the story behind Boston Metal. The startup has developed an emission-free steelmaking process that can also be applied to recover valuable metals from mining waste. The technology began to bubble up from the MIT laboratory of Professor Donald Sadoway about 40 years ago, during the late 1980s, when Sadoway first conceived the idea of deploying an electrolytic cell to produce pure metal from iron ore.

“Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, MOE research was extended to other metals before returning to electrolytic steelmaking and again focusing on inert anode technology,” Boston Metal explains.

The result of all that research is a cell-based electrolysis system that replaces coal with electricity from renewable resources. Boston Metal states that the process can convert any grade of iron ore into a pure liquid metal, all without CO2 emissions.

If you’re wondering what separates Boston Metal from the emerging coke-free DRI (Direct Reduced Iron) process. that’s a good question. Boston Metal states that its MOE system simplifies an otherwise complex process into one step, eliminating the expense of hydrogen infrastructure, process water, and carbon capture add-ons.

The heart of the MOE cell is an iron ore electrolyte and an inert anode. When the anode is electrified, the temperature of the cell rises to 1600°C (about 2912°F). At that point the iron oxide bonds in the ore split apart, releasing oxygen along with liquid metal. The system yields ladle-ready molten metal, drawn from the bottom of the cell without the need for further processing.

Boston Metal also draws attention to the difference between its MOE system and conventional steelmaking. “As a whole, the MOE process replaces multiple carbon-intensive steps of the traditional steelmaking method: coke production, iron ore sintering and pelletizing, blast furnace reduction and basic oxygen furnace refinement,” the company emphasizes.

Next Steps For Boston Metal

In January of 2024, Boston Metal announced plans to expand its footprint in Asia, following a $20 million Series C2 investment from the Tokyo firm Marunouchi Innovation Partners. “Building on its Series C1 funding momentum, Boston Metal is accelerating its mission to commercialize breakthrough green steel technology by 2026 to support the steel industry’s 2050 zero-carbon goals,” Boston Metal explained in a press statement.

Boston Metal is also active in Brazil, where the company formed a subsidiary to construct a commercial-scale metal recovery operation near São João del Rei, Minas Gerais. The process targets niobium, tantalum, and tin ferroalloys.

Not forgetting the place of its birth, Boston Metal has had the US in its sights, too. The company received $1.75 million in cost-share funding from the US Department of Energy to conduct a pilot-scale demonstration of its green steel process covering a grant period from 2018 to 2023, which earned a positive peer review at the conclusion of the effort.

Not letting the grass grow under its feet, in November of 2023, the Energy Department followed up by tapping Boston Metal for a $50 million grant funded through the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The award called for setting up a new manufacturing facility in Weirton, West Virginia, deploying the company’s MOE process to produce chromium metal and other alloys used in cleantech systems.

I’ve reached out to the company for an update on the Weirton award. If the new facility does materialize, it will be in good company. Cleantech companies are beginning to set up shop in Weirton where traditional steel mills once stood, one example being the energy storage startup Form Energy.

Meanwhile, Boston Metal is still moving forward with plans to commercialize its green steel process. In July, Boston Metal reminded everyone that it has already commissioned a multi-inert anode MOE industrial cell, billed as a “breakthrough for the steel industry that confirms the scalability of MOE Steel for commercial production.”

“Located at the company’s Woburn, Massachusetts headquarters, the industrial cell is now producing tonnage steel and represents a critical step toward deploying Boston Metal’s first MOE Steel demonstration plant,” the company adds.

Image (cropped): The US startup Boston Metal is bringing its new one-pot green steel process to the global industrial decarbonization movement (courtesy of Boston Metal).