Iron making is the biggest single cause of global warming. The reduction of iron ores with carbon generates about 7% of the global carbon dioxide emissions to produce ≈1.85 billion tons of steel per year. This dramatic scenario fuels efforts to re-invent this sector by using renewable and carbon-free reductants and electricity. Here, the authors show how to make sustainable steel by reducing solid iron oxides with hydrogen released from ammonia. Ammonia is an annually 180 million ton traded chemical energy carrier, with established transcontinental logistics and low liquefaction costs. It can be synthesized with green hydrogen and release hydrogen again through the reduction reaction. This advantage connects it with green iron making, for replacing fossil reductants. the authors show that ammonia-based reduction of iron oxide proceeds through an autocatalytic reaction, is kinetically as effective as hydrogen-based direct reduction, yields the same metallization, and can be industrially realized with existing technologies. The produced iron/iron nitride mixture can be subsequently melted in an electric arc furnace (or co-charged into a converter) to adjust the chemical composition to the target steel grades. A novel approach is thus presented to deploying intermittent renewable energy, mediated by green ammonia, for a disruptive technology transition toward sustainable iron making.

When solid-state redox-driven phase transformations are associated with mass loss, vacancies are produced that develop into pores. These pores can influence the kinetics of certain redox and phase transformation steps. We investigated the structural and chemical mechanisms in and at pores in a combined experimental-theoretical study, using the reduction of iron oxide by hydrogen as a model system. The redox product (water) accumulates inside the pores and shifts the local equilibrium at the already reduced material back toward reoxidation into cubic Fe1-xO (where x refers to Fe deficiency, space group Fm3¯m). This effect helps us to understand the sluggish reduction of cubic Fe1-xO by hydrogen, a key process for future sustainable steelmaking.

Steel is the most important material class in terms of volume and environmental impact. While it is a sustainability enabler, for instance through lightweight design, magnetic devices, and efficient turbines, its primary production is not. Iron is reduced from ores by carbon, causing 30% of the global CO ₂ emissions in manufacturing, qualifying it as the largest single industrial greenhouse gas emission source. Hydrogen is thus attractive as alternative reductant. Although this reaction has been studied for decades, its kinetics is not well understood, particularly during the wüstite reduction step which is much slower than hematite reduction. Some rate-limiting factors of this reaction are determined by the microstructure and local chemistry of the ores. Here, we report on a multi-scale structure and composition analysis of iron reduced from hematite with pure H ₂, reaching down to near-atomic scale. During reduction a complex pore- and microstructure evolves, due to oxygen loss and non-volume conserving phase transformations. The microstructure after reduction is an aggregate of nearly pure iron crystals, containing inherited and acquired pores and cracks. We observe several types of lattice defects that accelerate mass transport as well as several chemical impurities (Na, Mg, Ti, V) within the Fe in the form of oxide islands that were not reduced. With this study, we aim to open the perspective in the field of carbon-neutral iron production from macroscopic processing towards better understanding of the underlying microscopic transport and reduction mechanisms and kinetics.