Fortescue’s low temperature green iron process ready for real world testing

By Rachel Williamson – Renew Economy

A project to turn Australia’s low grade iron ore into high grade magnetite at very low temperatures is out of the lab and ready for real world testing, with a government-funded trial proving the concept works. 

The idea put to a scientific pressure test is Fortescue’s low‑temperature direct electrochemical reduction (DER) process, which reduces iron ores to iron metal at the super low temperature of 130ºC and doesn’t need hydrogen.

The main green hydrogen options in operation today swap in huge amounts of electricity for coal to power a blast furnace, which works at temperatures around 1000-2000ºC.