Electra discovered an affordable, clear method to purify iron, and it’s elevating $257M to make it occur

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Electra has raised $76.3 million to wash up the soiled iron business, TechCrunch has realized.

The startup has developed a brand new technique of utilizing electrical energy to extract pure iron from low-grade ores, opening the door to refining metal. The brand new funding spherical, which was disclosed in a regulatory submitting, seeks to boost a complete of $256.7 million.

At the moment, iron ore manufacturing is extremely polluting. It’s accountable for almost all of emissions for steelmaking, which itself produces 7% of the world’s carbon emissions. The primary course of used to make iron right now—smelting ore in scorching blast furnaces fueled by burning fossil fuels—has remained largely unchanged for hundreds of years.

Because the business has tried to wash up its act, it has begun to search for options. Electra’s resolution, often called electrowinning, is already used to supply different metals reminiscent of copper and nickel. Electrowinning makes use of an electrical present to take away metallic from a liquid resolution. The metallic is plated on the electrode whereas the impurity falls to the underside of the tank.

However adapting electrowinning to iron has been a troublesome activity, because it often requires high-grade ores, making the ultimate product too costly to compete with blast furnaces.

Electra claims its acid-based course of can deal with low-grade ores. It heats the answer to about 60 levels Celsius, which is beneath the boiling level of water, after which passes a present by means of it. The ensuing plates are very best feedstock for electrical arc furnaces, which may additionally run on renewable vitality.

When mixed, electrowinning and electrical arc furnaces have the potential to get rid of the vast majority of steelmaking’s carbon emissions.

Electra final raised $85 million in 2022 from buyers together with Amazon, Breakthrough Power Ventures, BHP Ventures, and Nucor.

The corporate didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

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