An ongoing push to produce cleaner “green” steel in America could get a boost from the Iron Range.
The Natural Resources Research Institute (NRRI) laboratory in Coleraine plans to utilize iron ore products produced in northeastern Minnesota to support two iron and steel industry decarbonization projects.
A total of $1.5 million in grants to NRRI, under negotiation with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), would help fund the two projects.
Iron ore produced concentrate at northeastern Minnesota taconite operations along with concentrate produced at NRRI and other underutilized iron resources, would be evaluated for the production of higher value iron products and electric arc furnace steel production under the projects.
“We’re involved in two projects essentially involved in CO2-free iron making,” Brett Spigarelli, NRRI metallurgical engineer said. “NRRI’s role will be to supply a variety of concentrates from the Iron Range, commercially available concentrates such as blast furnace grade, direct reduction grade, and some of the other concentrates that NRRI is developing.”
The NRRI Coleraine laboratory along Highway 169 performs minerals, metallurgy and biomass conversion research and development.
The laboratory is located in a region where the vast majority of America’s iron ore is produced.
With its experience, the laboratory has over the years developed a reputation as a premier facility for research and development of iron ore technology, process efficiency improvement and new iron products.
The two decarbonization projects are an example of partners utilizing NRRI for its expertise, NRRI officials say.
“A lot of these other research groups are reaching out to NRRI because 85 percent of iron ore production from the U.S. steel market comes from Minnesota,” Rod Johnson, NRRI endowed Taconite Chair said. “We’re probably the most knowledgeable group on the characteristics of the iron ore formation, so we’re in demand.”
Funding for the two projects is managed by the DOE’s Advanced Research Projects-Energy under a Revolutionizing Ore to Steel Impact Emissions (ROSIE) program.
A $575,000 DOE grant to help NRRI work in partnership with the University of Minnesota in developing a fully electrified microwave hydrogen plasma process is part of the $1.5 million in DOE funding to NRRI for the two projects.
The technology would use blast furnace and direct reduction iron ore concentrates to eliminate emissions from the pelletizing, sintering and coke-making steps in the conventional blast furnace process, according to NRRI.
The $575,000 grant is a portion of a $2.8 million grant to the University of Minnesota for the total project.
The University of Minnesota would serve as the lead on the project.
The fully electrified microwave hydrogen plasma project could in the future have an impact on blast furnaces operations as a replacement for blast furnace technology, Johnson said.
However, blast furnaces aren’t going away any time soon, he said.
“Potentially it’s there,” Johnson said of an impact on blast furnace operations. “Whatever the technology is in the future, blast furnaces are going to continue to operate for the near future. They’re going to be around for a while, but we do need to transition away from that for these climate needs.”
A $900,000 grant to NRRI, also part of the $1.5 million, would be part of a $3 million total DOE grant to Tufts University in Medford, MA.
That project would develop a method to directly reduce iron ore concentrates with ammonia.
If successful, the project would eliminate all direct process emissions from ironmaking, reduce melting costs and decrease total steel emissions by more than 60 percent, according to NRRI.
Iron concentrates that would be used in both projects and supplied by NRRI, would come northeastern Minnesota taconite operations and also from sources similar to scram mining operations, Johnson said.
The iron and steel industry accounts for about seven percent of global greenhouse gas emissions and 11 percent of global carbon dioxide, according to NRRI.
Electric arc steel production, which uses scrap and value-added iron products as feed, has taken over much of steel production in America.
About 80 percent of the steel made in America is currently produced by electric arc furnaces at mini mills.
But traditional blast furnace operations at integrated steelmaking facilities continue to operate, produce high-quality steel and implement new technologies to produce greener steel.
Global steel demand is expected to increase by as much as 40 percent by 2050, according to NRRI.
With the projected global steel growth, reducing industry emissions is important, the NRRI said.
The DOE has been aggressive in supporting clean steel research and development.
In March, the DOE announced $6 billion in funding for 33 projects to decarbonize energy-intensive industries, including iron and steel.
Iron ore and steel producer Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. along with SSAB Americas, were both selected for DOE award negotiations for innovative steelmaking technology projects under the funding, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI).
The two iron and steelmaking companies that own and operate all six taconite plants in northeastern Minnesota are moving forward with cleaner steelmaking projects.
Cleveland-Cliffs said it has successfully completed a hydrogen injection trial at its Indiana Harbor No. 7 blast furnace.
To provide the hydrogen, Cleveland-Cliffs completed a hydrogen pipeline at Indiana Harbor which was used for the trial.
In March, Cleveland-Cliffs announced two company decarbonization projects had been selected by the DOE for award negotiations of up to $575 million.
United States Steel Corp. is testing technology to capture CO2 at its Braddock, Pa, steelmaking facilities.
Carbon capture has the potential to reduce CO2 from blast furnaces, U.S. Steel said in a news release.
U.S. Steel is also working on a carbon capture project at its Gary Works blast furnaces in Gary, Ind.
Under an agreement with CarbonFree, a leader in carbon capture technology, construction on a SkyCycle technology plant begins this summer at Gary Works toward a 2026 completion date, U.S. Steel said in a news release.
Overall, steel producers in the United States have already been producing cleaner steel, the AISI says.
“The American steel industry, and the manufacturing sector as a whole, have made significant investments in cleaner and more sustainable production processes,” Kevin Dempsey, AISI president and chief executive officer said in a release. “We look forward to working with the administration to implement these and other significant initiatives, enabled by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act, to strengthen the production and use of clean American steel.”
NRRI says its projects are part of 13 projects in nine states to meet a federal goal of reducing climate-change fueling emissions and imports of steel products.
“NRRI’s multidisciplinary approach to research combined with our knowledge and experience of iron ore mining, processing, pelletizing, reduction, metal making, and product evaluation make us a a valuable partner for all this work,” Spigarelli said.
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