SBIR Phase I: Laser furnace to thermally decompose iron oxides for cost-competitive green iron production

The broader/commercial impact of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to reduce emissions, energy consumption, and hydrogen demands associated with one of the world’s more carbon-intensive industries—steelmaking. The leading green steelmaking process, green hydrogen direct reduction and electric arc furnace (H2 DR-EAF) is expensive, energy-intensive, and requires high-grade iron ore as a starting material, which accounts for only 3% of global iron ore resources. This project develops on a sustainable, low emissions, and energy-efficient laser heating method to convert low-grade iron ore into molten iron metal and steel. This approach lowers costs by 1) enabling the use of the low-grade feedstocks that make up 97% of the world’s iron ore supply and 2) implementing an energy-efficient and thermo-kinetically optimized heating approach. The commercialization of this technology would deliver a sustainable steelmaking process that is more cost-efficient than current green steel technologies and has a lower carbon footprint than any existing steelmaking approach, helping the United States steel industry secure a competitive advantage over other global producers of green steel. This approach has the potential to yield a market-disrupting technology poised to supplant carbon-intense, resource-demanding iron and steel production processes, resulting in an economically viable pathway to green steelmaking. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will develop a laser furnace that thermally decomposes iron oxide while reducing the amount of hydrogen required to produce green iron and steel, using blue laser diodes to rapidly heat iron ore to temperatures needed for thermal decomposition. Phase I will establish the feasibility of the approach as economically favorable to leading sustainable steelmaking techniques and validate its potential to significantly reduce energy consumption. In Objective 1, decomposition of low-grade iron ore, which contains <67% iron and higher amounts of impurities, into wüstite will be pursued by exploring the relationship between ore composition, laser heating parameters, and purity of the partially reduced ore. The thermal decomposition reaction mechanism and degree of decomposition will be evaluated. Objective 2 focuses on reducing wüstite from low-grade ore to iron metal, leveraging unprecedented temperatures enabled by laser heating, and investigating methods and process conditions to minimize hydrogen demand. Reduction reaction mechanisms, degree of reduction, and impurity content will be characterized. This work will provide a novel opportunity to produce molten iron metal from low-grade iron ores and reduce hydrogen demands, avoiding the need for high-grade ores and hydrogen requirements that limit other fossil-free ironmaking techniques. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.