Smelting – Green High Purity Pig Iron
HIsmelt technology + Iron Ore + Biochar = Green High Purity Pig Iron.
HIsmelt is a proven technology that was initially developed in Australia before being purchased by Molong Petroleum Machinery Ltd and developed commercially in China. HIsmelt smelts iron ore into High Purity Pig Iron ("HPPI") with lower environmental emissions than the conventional blast furnace technology and can produce "green" pig iron via using sustainably produced biochar as the reductant instead of coal (refer to ASX releases 09/02/2021 and 19/03/2021).
HIsmelt is an innovative smelting process capable of using the coarse Burracoppin concentrate as direct feed thus significantly reducing process costs at the mine site and adverse emissions at the smelter site (as neither sintering or pelletising of the ore is required). HIsmelt is also capable of using other feedstocks including industrial products that would otherwise go to landfill.
The HIsmelt smelt process produces a net excess of electricity, which will be "green" electricity when using biochar as the reductant instead of coal. This green electricity may be able to be counted as mitigating carbon emissions. The excess electricity (estimated at 20MW during smelting operations) could potentially be used to produce green hydrogen for use in a first step in the smelt reaction in order to further reduce carbon emissions (refer to ASX release 19/03/2021).