Steel is one of the most useful materials on the planet. It is the backbone of modern life, as it is used in skyscrapers, cars, planes, bridges, etc. Unfortunately, steelmaking is a very dirty process.
The most common way to produce it is to extract iron ore, reduce it in a blast furnace by adding coal, and then use an oxygen furnace to burn off excess carbon and other impurities. That’s why steel production accounts for about 7 to 9 percent of human greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, making it one of the dirtiest industries on the planet.
Boston Metal is now seeking to clean up steelmaking using an electrochemical process called molten oxide electrolysis (MOE), which eliminates many steps in steelmaking and releases oxygen as its only byproduct.
The company, founded by MIT Professor Emeritus Donald Sadoway, Professor Antoine Allanor, and James Yurco, Ph.D. 01, already uses the Ministry of the Environment to recover high-value metals from mining waste at its Brazilian subsidiary, Boston Metal do Brasil. This work helps the Boston Metal team deploy its technology on a commercial scale and establish key partnerships with mining operators. It also built a prototype of a Department of Energy reactor to produce green steel at its headquarters in Woburn, Massachusetts.
Despite its name, Boston Metal has global ambitions. The company has raised more than $370 million to date from institutions across Europe, Asia, the Americas and the Middle East, and its leaders expect to expand rapidly to transform steel production in every corner of the world.
“There is a global recognition that we need to move quickly, and this will happen through technological solutions like this that can help us move away from current technologies,” says Guillaume Lambot, chief scientist at Boston Metall and a former postdoctoral researcher at MIT. “Climate change is becoming an increasing part of our lives, so the pressure is on everyone to act quickly.”
To the moon and back
The origins of Boston Metal technology begin on the moon. In the mid-2000s, Sadoway, the John F. Eliot Professor Emeritus of Materials Chemistry in MIT’s Department of Materials Science, received a grant from NASA to explore ways to produce oxygen for future lunar bases. Sadoway and other MIT researchers explored the idea of sending an electrical current through an iron oxide rock on the Moon, using a rock from an ancient asteroid in Arizona for their experiments. The reaction produced oxygen, with the metal as a byproduct.
The search stopped with Sadoway, who noted that here on Earth, this mineral byproduct would be of interest. To help make the electrolysis reaction he studied more applicable, he joined forces with Alanor, an MIT professor of metallurgy and the Lichtman Chair in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. The professors were able to identify a less expensive anode and teamed up with Yurko, a former student, to found Boston Metal.
“All the basic studies and initial techniques came from MIT,” says Lambot. “We came out of research that was patented at MIT and licensed from MIT’s Technology Licensing Office.”
Lambot joined the company shortly after the Boston Metallurgical team published research in 2013 nature Description of the Ministry of Education platform.
“That’s when it went from a laboratory, with a coffee cup-sized experiment to prove the basics and produce a few grams, to a company that can produce hundreds of kilograms, and soon tons, of the metal,” says Lambot.
Boston Metal’s molten oxide electrolysis process takes place in typical MOE cells the size of a school bus. Iron ore rock is fed into the cell, which contains a cathode (the negative terminal of the MOE cell) and an anode immersed in a liquid electrolyte. The anode is inert, meaning it does not dissolve in the electrolyte or participate in the reaction other than serving as the positive terminal. When electricity passes between the anode and cathode and the cell temperature reaches about 1600°C, the iron oxide bonds in the ore split, creating a pure liquid metal at the bottom that can be exploited. The byproduct of the reaction is oxygen, and the process does not require water, hazardous chemicals, or precious metal catalysts.
The output of each cell depends on the magnitude of its current. With about 600,000 amps, each cell can produce up to 10 tons of metal per day, Lambut says. The steelmakers will license Boston Metal’s technology and deploy as many cells as possible to reach their production goals.
Boston Metal already uses the Department of the Environment to help mining companies recover high-value metals from their mining waste, which typically needs to undergo costly processing or storage. It could also be used to produce many other types of metals in the future, Lampot says, and Boston Metal was recently selected to negotiate grant funding to produce chromium metal — which is critical for a number of clean energy applications — in West Virginia.
“If you look around the world, a lot of the precursors for metals are oxides, and if it is an oxide, there’s a chance we can work with those precursors,” Lambot says. “There is a lot of excitement because everyone needs a solution that can decarbonize the metals industry, so a lot of people are interested in understanding where the Department of the Environment fits into their own operations.”
Gigaton of potential
Boston Metal’s steel decarbonization technology is currently scheduled to reach commercial scale in 2026, although its factory in Brazil has already begun submitting the industry to the Ministry of the Environment.
“I think it’s a window for the mineral industry to get to know the Ministry of the Environment and see how it works,” says Lambot. “You need people in the industry to understand this technology. It’s where you make connections and how new technology spreads.”
The Brazilian factory runs on 100 percent renewable energy.
“We can be the beneficiaries of this massive global drive to decarbonize the energy sector,” says Lambot. “I think our approach goes hand in hand with that. All-green steel requires green electricity, and I think what you’ll see is deployment of this technology where (clean electricity) is already readily available.”
The Boston Metal team is passionate about implementing MOE across the metals industry but is focused first and foremost on eliminating the gigaton of emissions from steel production.
“Steel produces about 10% of global emissions, and that is our north star,” says Lambot. “Everyone is committed to reducing carbon, reducing emissions, and achieving net-zero goals, so the steel industry is actively looking for viable technological solutions. People are ready for new approaches.”
(Tags for translation)Boston Metal
