Driving sustainability through systems innovation

  1. Overview
  2. Mineral futures
  3. Technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions
  4. Technologies for reducing fresh water usage
  5. Towards zero waste and emission of minor elements
  6. Key contacts

Technologies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions

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The Minerals Down Under Flagship is developing breakthrough processing technologies to reduce energy use and hence greenhouse gas emissions.

Iron and steel

The initial focus is the iron and steel industries because their high production volumes offer the greatest potential for large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

A photo showing molten material being poured from a vessel that is surrounded by flames.

Oil mallee and other Australian hardwoods could help industry produce ‘green’ steel.

Research projects include the development and application of ‘green’ fuels and reductants for iron making through blast furnaces.

These fuels can be made from biomass rather than coke and will result in a net reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Biomass can be sourced from the sustainable coppicing of mallee trees grown to reduce the spread of salinity in agriculture land.

Novel technologies

Greenhouse gas emissions, energy and water use will also be reduced through novel technologies such as dry granulation and heat recovery from molten slags using transformational heat exchangers.

In addition, these technologies will produce materials for the production of ‘green’ cement.