ArcelorMittal plans plant to make bioethanol from steel industry waste

ArcelorMittal, the world’s leading steel and mining company, has joined hands with LanzaTech, the carbon recycling company, and Primetals Technologies, a leading technology and service provider to the iron and steel industry, to set up Europe’s first-ever commercial scale production facility to create bioethanol from waste gases produced during the steelmaking process. The resulting bioethanol will predominantly be used in gasoline blending, but it can also be further processed into other products such as drop in jet fuel.
 
The 47,000 tonne per annum (tpa) ethanol project, sufficient to fuel half a million cars with ethanol blended gasoline, will demonstrate the added value of recycling waste streams, not only by reducing emissions at source, hence reducing ArcelorMittal’s direct carbon footprint, but by keeping fossil fuels in the ground through the production of commodity chemicals and fuels that would otherwise be made from oil.
 
Approximately 50 per cent of the carbon used in the chemistry of steelmaking leaves the process as carbon monoxide. Today, this waste gas stream is either flared or used to heat and power the steel mill. In either case, the carbon monoxide is combusted and the resulting CO2 is emitted. LanzaTech’s technology, however, recycles the waste gases and ferments them with a proprietary microbe to produce bioethanol. Every tonne of bioethanol produced, displaces 5.2 barrels of gasoline as well as reducing ArcelorMittal’s CO2 emissions by 2.3 tonnes.
 
Construction of the Euro 87-million flagship pilot project, which will be located at ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in Ghent, Belgium, is anticipated to commence later this year, with bioethanol production expected to start mid-2017. Construction will be in two phases, with phase one providing an initial capacity of 16,000 tpa ethanol by mid-2017 and phase two, which will be completed in 2018, bringing the total capacity to 47,000 tpa ethanol.
 
ArcelorMittal, which has been working on this project since 2011, has signed a long-term partnership agreement with LanzaTech. Hence, once construction of the Ghent flagship plant is complete and the commercial viability of the project is proven, the intention is to construct further plants across ArcelorMittal’s operations. If scaled up to its full potential in Europe, the technology could enable the production of around 500,000 tonnes of bioethanol a year.
 
As the production of bioethanol is a new activity, ArcelorMittal intends to set up a dedicated company for the roll out of this technology with strategic financial partners. Financing will be sought from a number of different sources. A total of Euro 10.2 million has been secured under the EU’s 2020 Horizon programme for research and development and talks are currently taking place with potential equity and debt partners.
 
Primetals Technologies will be responsible for part of the engineering, automation, key equipment and commissioning.
 
LanzaTech’s proprietary gas fermentation technology provides an economic route to fuels and high-value chemicals by recycling waste carbon streams. Founded in New Zealand, LanzaTech has raised more than $ 200 million from investors including Khosla Ventures, K1W1, Qiming Venture Partners, Malaysian Life Sciences Capital Fund, Petronas, Mitsui, Primetals, China International Capital Corp, Suncor and the New Zealand Superannuation Fund.