DOE to fund Argonne Laboratory steel decarbonization project

The department will issue $19 million in funding for Argonne’s Center for Steel Electrification by Electrosynthesis, which aims to develop a process for replacing blast furnaces and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

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Jong Kiam Soon | dreamstime.com

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $19 million in funding over four years for its Lemont, Illinois-based Argonne National Laboratory to lead a multi-institutional Center for Steel Electrification by Electrosynthesis (C-STEEL). According to Argonne, the center’s goal is to develop a process that would replace blast furnaces in steelmaking and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85 percent by 2035.

The research is being funded by the DOE’s Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences and Advanced Scientific Computing Research.

Argonne says C-STEEL is a key project of the DOE’s Industrial Heat Energy Earthshot Initiative, which aims to significantly cut emissions from the energy-intensive process of industrial heating. Partners in the center include DOE’s Oak Ridge, Tennessee-based Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Case Western Reserve University, Northern Illinois University, Purdue University and the University of Illinois-Chicago.

The national laboratory says the most energy-intensive step in steel production involves converting iron ore into purified iron metal or iron alloys using blast furnaces, demanding temperatures of 2,500 to 2,700 F. The team’s electrodeposition process would eliminate or minimize that heat demand.

The process involves dissolving iron ore in a solution and using electricity to initiate a reaction that deposits a usable iron metal or alloy for steelmaking. The solution is a liquid electrolyte similar to those found in batteries.

Argonne says the project has three thrusts. Two of them will investigate different processes for electrodeposition. One process will operate at room temperature using a water-based electrolyte. The other will use a salt-based electrolyte and will function at temperatures 1,800 to 2,000 F below current blast furnaces. The lab adds the energy for this process is low enough that it could be provided by renewables or waste heat from a nuclear reactor.

A third thrust will focus on gaining an atomic-level understanding of each process. The goal of this thrust, the lab says, is to exert precise control over both the structure and composition of the metal products so they can be incorporated into existing downstream steelmaking processes.

Each thrust will incorporate an artificial intelligence-based platform to ensure a unified approach to electrolyte design. To that end, Argonne says C-STEEL will draw upon the computational resources of Leadership Computing Facilities, one at Argonne and the other at Oak Ridge.