What is green iron?

What is green iron?

We know what you may be thinking – is it something akin to the infamous green, glowing Kryptonite from the Superman series?

Not even close.

The reality is less science fiction – but arguably more interesting.

We live in a world built with steel.  

A marvel of the modern world and the backbone of how we live our lives today.  

But did you know that steelmaking is a major source of global emissions?

Each year it produces 2.6 billion tonnes of CO2 – equating to 7% of total emissions globally – with ironmaking being the biggest contributor.  

Enter green iron – the solution to a lower-emissions pathway for the iron and steel industry. Made with much lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional ironmaking, green iron uses renewable energy and alternatives to fossil fuels.

In a nutshell, green iron puts coal in the back seat and green energy behind the wheel.  

Why is traditional ironmaking so carbon intensive?

Here's the challenge.

Iron ore isn't pure iron. The iron is bonded with oxygen, and we need to separate the two before we can make steel.

Traditionally, carbon from coal plays a big part in making that happen. It helps generate the intense heat needed for ironmaking and helps remove oxygen from the iron ore – producing carbon emissions along the way.

And that's the problem green iron is trying to solve.

Want to know more about the traditional process, read: What is hot metal?

Okay, so how do you make green iron?

Remember that oxygen we need to separate from the iron ore?

This is where things start to change.

Instead of relying on carbon from coal to do that job, one pathway we're exploring uses green hydrogen.

Green hydrogen reacts with the oxygen in the iron ore. Instead of that oxygen combining with carbon and contributing to carbon dioxide emissions, it combines with hydrogen to form water.

This produces direct reduced iron, or DRI: solid material containing metallic iron

And where does the green hydrogen come from? We can make it using renewable electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

So the journey starts to look quite different:

Iron ore → remove oxygen using green hydrogen → DRI → electric smelting → molten iron

Sounds straightforward enough. Doing it reliably, at the quality required and at industrial scale is where things get much harder.

Where are we testing this?

This isn't just something we're exploring on paper.

At our Green Metal Project at Christmas Creek, we're testing technologies and processes that could help us develop a pathway to producing green iron at commercial scale from Pilbara ore.

Having produced first hot metal during commissioning, we’re continuing to test the pathway towards green iron

So, have we made green iron yet?

Not yet.

First hot metal demonstrated the electric smelting step. It did not demonstrate the complete pathway to green iron from Pilbara ore.

Making green iron from Pilbara ore at commercial scale is a complex challenge, and we're still testing and refining the technologies needed to get there.

However pouring our first hot metal was an important milestone. But it's one step in a much bigger process.

Hooked on iron ore’s journey to steel, or our Green Metal Project?

You’ll want to check out:  

What is hot metal?

Green Metal Project at Christmas Creek