Steelmaking, a major emitter of climate-altering gases,
could be transformed by a new process developed at MIT.
Anyone who has seen pictures of the giant, red-hot cauldrons
in which steel is made — fed by vast amounts of carbon, and belching flame and
smoke — would not be surprised to learn that steelmaking is one of the world’s
leading industrial sources of greenhouse gases. But remarkably, a new process
developed by MIT researchers could change all that.
The new process even carries a couple of nice side benefits:
The resulting steel should be of higher purity, and eventually, once the
process is scaled up, cheaper. Donald Sadoway, the John F. Elliott Professor of
Materials Chemistry at MIT and senior author of a new paper describing the
process, says this could be a significant “win, win, win” proposition.