Latest news with #BostonMetal
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Startup makes incredible breakthrough that could transform the construction industry: 'The scale is massive'
A green steel startup called Boston Metal is one step closer to commercializing its more sustainable technology and changing the face of this notoriously pollution-heavy industry. The building and construction industry tops the charts in global emissions, accounting for around 37% of all planet-warming gases. Although steel production is a small part of the industry, its emissions account for around 7% of the world's output. To combat this, Boston Metal has spent more than a decade developing sustainable technology that replaces coal-burning reactors with electricity, according to MIT Technology Review. The company uses a process called molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) to melt down iron ore along with other ingredients to ultimately create steel. Electricity is used to heat the mixture to 2,900 degrees Fahrenheit, driving the necessary chemical reactions. Conventional steel-making plants use a coal-based fuel called coke to convert iron ore into iron (the key ingredient in steel), as the report explained. However, this process releases large amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which contributes to a warming planet. Other pollutants and particulate matter foul the air around factories, impacting the health of nearby communities. Boston Metal's process only emits oxygen, and since it can run on electricity generated from renewable sources like wind or solar power, MIT explained that this approach could all but eliminate the climate impact of steel production. "MOE is leveraging the power of electrochemistry to decarbonize steelmaking in an efficient, one-step process that has the potential to cut nearly 10% of the world's carbon emissions," per the company's website. Boston Metal was founded in 2013, according to the report, and since then, it's gone from reactors roughly the size of a coffee cup to a scale that can produce tons of metal at a time. That's a good start, but there's work to be done to meet the needs of an industry that deals in billions of tons per year. Should the government be able to control how we heat our homes? Definitely Only if it saves money I'm not sure No way Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "The volumes of steel everywhere around us — it's immense," Boston Metal Senior Vice President of Business Development Adam Rauwerdink told MIT. "The scale is massive." The company recently completed test runs of its latest and largest reactor to observe how reactions function on a larger scale, which will help them develop a cost structure for their products. The Boston facility is its demonstration plant, as the report explained, and is expected to come online in late 2026, with operations slated to begin the following year. Plans for an even bigger facility will be the next step as the company moves forward with its efforts to clean up the steel production industry's image. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Scientists unlock groundbreaking technology with the potential to transform global manufacturing: 'This could be a breakthrough'
Producing steel traditionally relies on dirty energy and contributes to air pollution from burning coal and natural gas. Approximately 7% of global carbon dioxide emissions can be attributed to making steel. However, researchers are working on pollution-free steel production technology to provide a cleaner, greener alternative. As Interesting Engineering reported, scientists at SINTEF, an independent research organization in Norway, are focusing on replacing carbon with hydrogen plasma to produce metals. Hydrogen plasma has unique properties that allow it to be more reactive than standard hydrogen once heated enough to transform into plasma. In a superheated state, hydrogen can efficiently strip oxygen from metal ores. However, hydrogen plasma only releases a byproduct of water vapor. This makes the process essentially pollution-free compared to conventional steel production, which relies on carbon. "If we succeed with hydrogen plasma, we can eliminate significant CO2 emissions from the metal industry," Kristine Bly, master of science at SINTEF, said. "This could be a breakthrough for the green transition in steel production." The SINTEF researchers hope to scale the technology to impact the metal industry. They are specifically looking to apply it to ferromanganese, which is used in steel manufacturing. The researchers are optimistic that this new technology can lead to widespread pollution-free metal production if they can overcome energy consumption and cost challenges. Green hydrogen and renewable electricity have the potential to transform the construction industry and meet global demands without compromising the health of people and our planet. Other research groups have been working on making steel more sustainable with the HYBRIT process in Sweden and Boston Metal's molten oxide electrolysis. At SINTEF, there's hope that transitioning from carbon to hydrogen plasma will impact global supply chains. The researchers believe this technology could reduce the demand for metallurgical coke and increase the demand for renewable energy, which is used to power the plasma process. They encouraged further research and innovation in this field to make hydrogen plasma technology economically viable. Does seeing a product labeled with its carbon footprint make you more likely to buy it? Definitely Only if the carbon footprint is small Only if I understand the label Not at all Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. With cost-effective clean energy, governments and institutions are better positioned to achieve their clean energy goals. Meanwhile, people living near steel manufacturing facilities would have healthier air to breathe with fewer pollutants and toxins from the production processes. The SINTEF researchers also recommended close collaboration between the steel industry and governments and financial support through grants and incentives to reduce companies' initial burdens. Once implemented, companies will need to train their workers to use the new technology, and educational institutions must adapt their curricula to prepare the future workforce. Finally, they pointed out that this research comes from a Norwegian socio-economic perspective and that global economic effects may be mixed, at least for now. "Norway experiences positive impacts on value-added and employment, but globally, sectors like mining and coke production decline due to reduced demand for coke, affecting countries like Denmark, Brazil, Nigeria, and the USA," the researchers wrote. Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the latest innovations improving our lives and shaping our future, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Yahoo
13-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Steel Emits 11 Percent of All Greenhouses Gases. Scientists Have Invented a Device to Bring That Down to Zero.
The steel industry produces roughly 11 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, so cleaning up the industry is a top priority. Now Boston Metal has successfully demonstrated that its Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MQE) industrial cell can be scaled up to produce large amounts of a steel, a big milestone for hopefully one day producing metal without the need for coke, a coal-based fuel. As its name suggests, the MQE process requires electricity to create liquid iron, so much of its green energy accolades require electricity supplied from green sources, such as solar, wind, or even nuclear. The world is hungry for steel. In 2024, the worldwide industry produced nearly 2 billion metric tons of the iron-carbon alloy while burping out about 11 percent of the total carbon dioxide emissions for the year. While transportation, energy production, and agriculture all take up bigger slices of that unsavory doomsday pie, steelmaking remains a large contributor to the global climate crisis. The problem is the coal-based fuel called coke (no, not that Coke) that lies at the heart of the conventional steel-making process. Coke provides a dual role by delivering the heat required for steelmaking while also stealing away oxygen in the process, leaving behind molten iron—the key ingredient of steel. When coke combines with oxygen in this way, it's eventually released as carbon dioxide, the greenhouse gas that's slowly (but surely) imperiling life on Earth. But if there's one thing humans are good at, it's engineering themselves out of a problem, and the green energy company Boston Steel, originally developed at MIT, believes it finally has a green steel solution that's scalable. The company announced that it has successfully demonstrated its multi-inert anode Molten Oxide Electrolysis (MQE) industrial cell that can produce a ton or two of steel in a month. While that's not enough to replace large-scale steelmaking, adding more anodes and more reactors can increase that capacity and eventually lead to wide-scale green steel adoption—or that's the hope, anyway. 'We are the only company with a direct and scalable approach to more efficient and clean steelmaking, and I can now say that tonnage steel is flowing from our multi-inert anode MOE cell,' Tadeu Carneiro, CEO of Boston Metal, said in a press statement. 'With this milestone, we are taking a major step forward in making green steel a reality and we're doing it right here in the U.S., demonstrating the critical innovation that can enhance domestic manufacturing.' And like most green energy technologies, it relies on electrification. Instead of using coke for developing molten iron, MQE uses a metallic anode that sticks into the reactor and provides electricity, heating up the iron ore to 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,900 degrees Fahrenheit) and driving the reactions for creating molten iron. And the byproduct of this interaction? Oxygen. Of course one big piece of this green steel puzzle is that the supplied electricity must come from renewable resources in order to be truly zero emissions, so building out the world's green energy infrastructure remains a top priority. According to MIT Technology Review, Boston Metal's reactor has grown from the size of a coffee cup to this latest model that can produce a ton of metal in just 12 years. To really clean up the industry, Boston Metal will need to scale up even more, but now it's proven that the technology is ready to go big or go home. The company anticipates having a demonstration plan up and running in late 2026 and wants to begin licensing the technology to steelmakers around the world. 'There is no lack of demand for green steel today,' Carneiro said in a video describing the company's technology in 2022. 'Once we go commercial by 2026…the application of our technology and the adoption will be very fast.' You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
