The First Movers Coalition has announced 17 Top Innovators, selected by a panel of experts, in the enabling technologies pillar of the FMC near-zero steel challenge.
The challenge sought to foster innovation in steel decarbonization, surface enabling technologies and suppliers of near-zero emission steel, and further strengthen market demand for decarbonized steel products by 2030.
The 17 selected Top Innovators have developed pioneering technologies, such as hydrogen-based direct reduction of ore, electrolysis methods and advanced furnace technologies, which have the potential to reduce steel production's emissions.

Decarbonizing the steel industry is a crucial challenge to overcome if the world is going to meet its climate goals. Steel production contributes around 11% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, making it one of the heaviest polluting industries and a heavy-emitting sector of focus for the First Movers Coalition.

The coalition’s mission is to drive investment and accelerate the scaling of the breakthrough technologies required to make these products by demonstrating a credible demand signal for highly decarbonized products.

But how can these innovative technologies be surfaced and scaled? The First Movers Coalition’s near zero steel challenge was a recently concluded global initiative by the World Economic Forum and Greenhouse, with support from partners Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, ResponsibleSteel and RMI. It aimed at identifying which companies will supply final steel products at First Movers’ near-zero emissions thresholds by 2030, which companies seek to buy these steel products and which companies are providing the enabling technologies for highly decarbonized steel production.

The 70 submissions to this latter challenge of enabling technologies showcase solutions across several sub-categories that steel producers require to produce near-zero emissions steel. An expert evaluating panel whittled the 70 submissions to 17 top innovators based on relevance, feasibility, scalability, technology readiness and impact, with each technology sub-category having a top-ranked entry.

The highest-scoring entries from each technology sub-category are as follows:

Molten Industries (USA) was the steel challenge’s top-ranked green hydrogen-based submission. They focus on producing carbon-neutral hydrogen for net-zero steel using methane pyrolysis, a process in which thermal energy is applied to methane to break the chemical bond between carbon and hydrogen. As a result, graphite, a solid carbon product that can be used in lithium-ion batteries or electric arc furnace electrodes with no CO2 emissions and hydrogen gas, is produced.

GravitHy (France) had the highest-scoring direct reduction entry. Their solution is powered entirely by low-carbon hydrogen. Using an integrated H2-DRI process, GravitHy can produce hot briquetted iron, a premium form of direct reduced iron for steelmaking. This hot briquetted iron can be stored and shipped long distances for use in electric arc furnaces, melters or blast furnaces to produce decarbonized steel.

Boston Metal’s (USA) Molten Oxide Electrolysis was a high-scoring electrolysis solution that creates high-purity molten iron from low-grade iron ore using only electricity. It eliminates scope one emissions attributed to steel production, reduces end customers’ scope three emissions and can be applied to any iron ore grade.

Xi’an LONGI Hydrogen Energy Technology Company (China) also provided a high-scoring electrolyzer technology submission focusing on its new alkaline electrolyzer that continuously lowers energy consumption and improves the cost-efficiency of green hydrogen production.

Coolbrook (Finland) provided the highest-ranked furnace technology submission. Their RotoDynamic Technology is designed to generate high-temperature process heat up to 1,700 degrees Celsius. It is powered by electrification, removing the need to burn fossil fuels to create high temperatures. It can potentially remove 600 megatonnes of iron and steel-related global CO2 emissions annually.

KC8’s (Australia) “UNO MK3” solution received the highest score out of the carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) challenge entries. This carbon capture solution is retrofittable to large-scale emissions sources, typically has lower CAPEX and OPEX costs than amine-based carbon capture and can centralize the regeneration unit for wide-area processing such as steel mill applications.

Element Zero (Australia) had the highest electrowinning score. The company has identified a pathway to chemically convert and dissolve hematite and magnetite in a unique non-aqueous electrolyte. Upon dissolution, this allows iron oxide to be selectively electro-reduced resulting in fine iron particles and the produced powder can be used directly or briquetted for export.

Below are the other ten Top Innovator entries according to the various technology sub-sectors crucial for decarbonising the steel industry.

Hygenco (India)– low-carbon hydrogen production. The company has a commissioned- pilot plant that is running and producing 20 NM3 per hour of pure green hydrogen in India.

Invenergy (USA) - low-carbon hydrogen production. The company is building its Sauk Valley Hydrogen Center, a clean hydrogen demonstration project that will use renewable energy to produce hydrogen via electrolysis.

LanzaTech (USA) – Carbon Capture and Use. The company recycles waste carbon into more sustainable versions of the critical chemical building blocks necessary for everyday products, which are typically sourced from virgin fossil carbon.

MCi Carbon (Australia) – Carbon Capture and Use. The company’s technology can incorporate CO2 from steel, cement, and chemicals with a variety of feedstocks, including industrial wastes and low-grade minerals, to create a variety of outputs for use in construction, advanced manufacturing, and the circular economy.

Calix (Australia) – Direct Reduction. Their Zero Emissions Steel Technology (ZESTY) is the application of Calix’s core indirectly heated calcination technology to the direct reduction of iron ore with hydrogen (H-DRI). Electrification and the use of green hydrogen enables the conversion of iron ore to metal iron with near zero emissions.

Jolt (Spain) – Electrolysis. Jolt is commercialising a patented industrial catalytic coating process to manufacture high volume, low cost and high performance electrodes for use in hydrogen electrolysers.

Plug Power (USA) – Electrolysis. The company produces hydrogen through the use of electrolysers, transports it by cryogenic trucks, stores it with turnkey handling systems and dispenses it through its proprietary hydrogen dispensers.

Electra (USA) – Electrowinning. Electra’s low-temperature electrowinning of high-impurity iron ore produces high purity iron metal. The clean iron product can then be fed directly into electric arc furnaces (EAF) for steel making or foundry furnaces for iron castings.

University of New South Wales (Australia) – Furnace Technology. The university’s patented co-injection of hydrogen and biomass technology is a practical transitional solution towards greener ironmaking. While hydrogen reduces carbon emissions during blast furnace operations, biomass offsets the endothermic iron ore reduction reactions caused by hydrogen in the blast furnace. This integration ensures a more sustainable and eco-friendly ironmaking process.

Hydrogen Waves (UK) – Green hydrogen production. The company’s solution aims to tackle net efficiency loss between the PV power plants and electrolysers by introducing its power management and control architecture. This eliminates the need for the solar PV inverter, the electrolyser Power Supply, and most associated losses.

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