According to TechCrunch, Electra has raised $76.3 million to clean up the dirty steel industry.
The startup has developed a new way to extract pure iron from low-grade ore using electricity, opening the door to cleaner steel. The new funding round, disclosed in a regulatory filing, aims to raise a total of $256.7 million.
Today's iron production is highly polluted. The majority of emissions from steelmaking come from steel, which itself generates 7% of global carbon emissions. The main process used to make iron today, which involves burning fossil fuels and melting ore in scorching blast furnaces, has changed little over the centuries.
The industry is trying to clean up its act and is starting to look for alternatives. Electra's solution, known as electrowinning, is already used in the production of other metals such as copper and nickel. Electrowinning uses an electric current to draw metals from a solution. The metal is plated onto the electrode and the impurities fall to the bottom of the tank.
However, applying electrowinning to iron has been difficult because it typically requires high-grade ore, making the final product too expensive to compete with blast furnaces.
Electra claims its acid-based process can also process low-grade ores. The solution is heated to approximately 60°C, below the boiling point of water, and an electric current is passed through the solution. The resulting plates are an ideal raw material for electric arc furnaces that can also be operated with renewable energy.
A combination of electrowinning and electric arc furnaces has the potential to eliminate a large portion of the carbon emissions from steelmaking.
Electra last raised $85 million in 2022 from investors including Amazon, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, BHP Ventures, and Nucor.
The company did not respond to requests for comment.