US-backed 10,000-ton plant makes iron, steel in one step, cuts emissions by up to 98%

Hertha Metals plans to build a new U.S. facility capable of producing 10,000 tonnes of high-purity iron and steel using a single-step process that the company says can cut production costs by 25% and emissions by up to 98%.

The Texas-based company raised $133.65 million in a Series A round to finance the Hertha Chalyx facility. The funding includes a $65 million equity investment from the U.S. government through the Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program, alongside private investment led by Khosla Ventures and Doerr Capital.

The plant is intended to address a major gap in the domestic supply chain for rare-earth permanent magnets. The U.S. currently imports almost all of the high-purity iron used for these magnets and has no domestic production capacity for the material, according to Hertha.

Neodymium-iron-boron, or NdFeB, magnets contain roughly 70% high-purity iron by weight. They are widely used in electric vehicles, aerospace systems, radar equipment and other technologies, making domestic supplies increasingly important for U.S. manufacturing and defense.

One reactor replaces several

At the center of the project is Hertha’s Flex-HERS process, which replaces the conventional multi-step, coal-dependent blast furnace route with a single continuous reactor. The system can process different grades of iron ore and use either natural gas or hydrogen as the reducing agent.

Hertha says the process can produce iron and steel at 25% lower cost than conventional blast furnaces. Using natural gas can reduce emissions by 50%, while switching to hydrogen could cut them by as much as 98%.

“Every electric vehicle, aerospace platform, radar system, and data center depends on domestic iron and magnet feedstock suppliers,” said Dr. Laureen Meroueh, CEO and founder of Hertha Metals. “Hertha Chalyx closes that gap.”

The facility is designed to produce both steel-grade and magnet-grade high-purity iron. Hertha says this could provide U.S. rare-earth magnet manufacturers with a domestic source of an essential feedstock as federal procurement rules drive demand for U.S.-made magnets.

Production moves beyond pilot

Hertha already operates a 360-ton-per-year demonstration facility called Pi100 in Conroe, Texas. The company says it is currently undergoing supplier qualification with major U.S. rare-earth magnet producers.

Chalyx is expected to break ground this year and will operate alongside the existing pilot plant. Together, the facilities will form an integrated site capable of producing both steel and high-purity iron.

The company says its ability to use domestic iron ore while reducing reliance on conventional coal-heavy steelmaking could help establish a U.S.-based supply chain stretching from raw materials to finished magnets.

The project also represents a substantial jump from Hertha’s current demonstration scale. At 10,000 tonnes of planned output, Chalyx would have nearly 28 times the annual production capacity of its existing 360-ton facility.

Hertha says the combination of lower production costs, flexible ore inputs, and reduced emissions could make its process competitive with conventional steelmaking while supplying a material the U.S. currently depends on imports to obtain.

Source: https://interestingengineering.com/energy/hertha-single-step-steel-high-purity-iron-us