Making steel sustainable with a circular process

Waste metals are turned into pure iron for use in steel manufacturing

Spotted: Steel is found everywhere in the built environment, but its manufacture is extremely energy intensive – accounting for around seven per cent of the world’s energy sector CO2 emissions. Reducing emissions is a key priority for the industry and GreenIron is one of those working to achieve this, with a CO2-free process for creating pure iron – the first step in steel manufacturing – out of waste metal oxides.

GreenIron’s process includes a furnace that’s used to recycle residual products from the steel, mining, and manufacturing industries without emitting any CO2. The process begins with oxidised materials, such as metal ore, slag, mill scale, filter dust, and more.

The reduction process, which turns these waste materials into usable iron, is designed to work with hydrogen, gravity, temperature differences, and pressure changes to reduce the energy needed. The circular process is entirely CO2-free, producing only water as a byproduct.

Another advantage of GreenIron’s process is that it uses small furnaces, which can be located when waste products are generated, providing fossil-free steel that can be reused in steel production with a minimum of transportation – saving further emissions. GreenIron CCO Tanja Ilic told Springwise that its “inspiration is to bring as many furnaces to the market as fast as possible and reach 300 furnaces by 2030, lowering the CO2 in the mining and metals industry.

GreenIron has been granted an environmental permit to develop a full-scale production site in Sandviken, Sweden this year. The company plans to process 30,000 tonnes of input waste material a year at the site, resulting in a reduction of approximately 42,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year compared to traditional fossil-based metal production.

Written By: Lisa Magloff