Electra has raised $76.3 million to clean up the dirty iron manufacturing industry, TechCrunch has learned.
The startup has developed a new method of using electricity to extract pure iron from low-grade ores, opening the door to purer steel. The new funding round, which was disclosed in a regulatory filing, seeks to raise a total of $256.7 million.
Iron production today is very polluting. It is responsible for the vast majority of emissions for steel production, which itself generates 7% of the world’s carbon emissions. The main process used to make iron today—smelting ores in blazing furnaces fueled by the burning of fossil fuels—has remained largely unchanged for centuries.
As the industry has sought to clean up its act, it has begun to look for alternatives. Electra’s solution, known as electrowinning, is already used to produce other metals such as copper and nickel. Electrowinning uses an electric current to extract a metal from a liquid solution. The metal is deposited on an electrode while the impurities fall to the bottom of the tank.
But adapting electrowinning to iron has been challenging, in part because it typically requires higher-grade ore, making the final product too expensive to compete with blast furnaces.
Electra claims its acid-based process can handle lower-grade ores. He heats the solution to about 60 degrees C, which is below the boiling point of water, and then sends a current through it. The resulting slabs are ideal feedstock for electric arc furnaces, which can also run on renewable energy.
When combined, electrowinning and electric arc furnaces have the potential to eliminate most 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 immediately respond to a request for comment.
