Sources: U.S. Department of Energy; CMCM staff

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has committed just under $32 million to 10 projects supporting decarbonization of ore- or scrap-based iron and steelmaking operations and converting other existing ancillary and thermal processes to use clean fuels or electricity. The projects, along with their leaders and partners, are:

• BIO-Coke for Reducing CO₂ Emissions in Iron and Steel Manufacturing; Penn State University and ArcelorMittal Dofasco; $1,335,018

• Carbon-Neutral Steel Production with Methane Pyrolysis Driven Direct Reduced Iron; Molten Industries, CPFD Software and U.S. Steel Corp.; $5,391,728

• Decarbonizing Ironmaking Using Ammonia; Tufts University; $1,000,000

• Development and Demonstration of an Industrial Hydrogen-Fired Steel Reheating Furnace; Purdue University Northwest, Purdue – Steel Manufacturing Simulation and Visualization Consortium, ArcelorMittal North America, Cleveland-Cliffs, Gerdau, Linde, Oak Ridge National Laboratory; $9,961,243

• Hydrogen-Electric Smelting Reduction for Green Iron and Steel Production; Hertha Metals Inc. and Idaho National Laboratory; $1,651,316

• Molten Salt Electrolysis for Sustainable Iron Metal Production; Case Western Reserve University, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of Arizona, Cleveland-Cliffs; $1,000,000

• Novel Heating Elements for Slab Reheat Furnace Electrification; Idaho National Laboratory, Cleveland-Cliffs, Andritz Metals USA; $1,857,208

• Regenerative High Efficiency Low-Carbon Fuel Flexible System; GTI Energy, Bloom Engineering, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and Finkl Steel; $3,701,786

• Scale-up and Demonstration of a Carbon Neutral Engineered Material to Displace Fossil Carbon in Electric Arc Furnace Steel Mills; University of Minnesota: Twin Cities – Natural Resources Research Institute and Nucor Corp.; $2,940,609

• Scaling Hydrogen-Direct Reduced Iron Pathways to Decarbonize Iron and Steelmaking; Carnegie Mellon University, Purdue University Northwest, Nucor Corp., U.S. Steel Corp.; $3,094,435

The projects will spawn the DOE Low Emissions Steel Manufacturing Research Program, and are primarily funded through the agency’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office plus the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office. They follow the fall 2022 release of the Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap, which identifies key pathways to reducing CO₂ emissions in Iron and Steelmaking, plus companion energy-intensive subsectors: Cement and Concrete; Chemicals; Food and Beverage; Petroleum Refining; plus, Paper and Forest Products. 

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