Finland-based engineering and technology company Metso Outotec Corporation has announced that will design a BioIron™ process for Australia-based miner Rio Tinto’s larger-scale pilot plant for low-carbon iron making. The next step is to run process trials on a pilot plant with a capacity of one mt per hour.
The process uses raw biomass instead of metallurgical coal as a reductant and microwave energy to convert Pilbara iron ore to metallic iron in the steelmaking process. This reduction process, when coupled with DRI Smelting technology, has high potential to reduce the carbon footprint of the traditional blast furnace steelmaking route.
A small-scale Rio Tinto pilot plant in Germany has proved the effectiveness of its low-carbon iron-making process using ores, as SteelOrbis previously reported.