MOE: Environmentally Friendly Alternative for Iron Making

AISI announced this August that under the leadership of Professor Donald R. Sadoway, in the Department of Materials Science Engineering, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has successfully demonstrated the technical viability of producing iron by molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) in a laboratory scale-cell. As part of the AISI/Department of Energy (DOE) Technology Roadmap Program (TRP), producing iron in the lab by MOE represents a significant stride and is a positive signal about the future of this technology, according to Lawrence W. Kavanagh, AISI vice president of manufacturing and technology.

"What sets molten oxide electrolysis apart from other metal producing technologies is that it is totally carbon-free and, hence, generates no CO₂ gases-only oxygen," said Kavanagh. "Over the last two decades, steelmakers have reduced energy utilization per ton by some 28 percent, and today's processes are productive and green, but steelmakers need to and want to do more—and the development of transformational iron making technologies such as MOE will make similar achievements possible over the next two decades as well."

TRP started in July 1997 as a partnership between AISI and DOE in order to identify trends, drivers and technological challenges facing the steel industry. The TRP goal is to increase the competitiveness of the U.S. steel industry while saving energy and enhancing the environment. This work by MIT marks one of TRP's breakthrough projects towards meeting that goal.

Unlike other iron making processes, MOE works by passing an electric current through a liquid solution of iron oxide. The iron oxide then breaks down into liquid iron and oxygen gas allowing oxygen to be the main by-product of the process.

MIT will continue further experiments to determine how to increase the rate of iron production and to discover new materials capable of extending the life of the electrodes to industrially practical limits. This work will set the stage for construction of a pilot scale cell to further validate the viability of the MOE process and identify scale up parameters.For more information, contact Joe Vehec.

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