Rio Tinto will test the use of biomass in place of coking coal in the steelmaking process in a small-scale pilot plant, in an attempt to cut the industry's carbon emissions through the use of innovative technologies, it announced on Thursday October 14.
Over the past decade, the company has developed a laboratory-proven process that combines the use of raw, sustainable biomass with microwave technology to convert iron ore to metallic iron during the steelmaking process, it said.If the pilot and later larger-scale tests are successful, there is the potential for this technology to be scaled-up commercially to process Rio Tinto's iron ore fines, the company said."We are encouraged by early testing results of this new process,...