Tenova’s DRI Tech to Power Hydrogen-based Plants in Sweden, Japan

Tenova has received two plant-project contract awards during the first half of 2024 for its ENERGIRON direct-reduction ironmaking (DRI) technology, developed jointly with Danieli, a metals production technology and equipment supplier.

In February, the Castellanza, Italy-based firm announced that it had been chosen by Swedish iron ore producer LKAB for the basic engineering of a 100% hydrogen-based DRI plant in Gällivare, Sweden. The contract, said Tenova, represented a further step in the application of the ENERGIRON technology by the group, as it already was core equipment to the full-hydrogen pilot plant in Luleå, Sweden, built by HYBRIT Development AB, a joint venture between LKAB, SSAB, and Vattenfall, and commissioned in 2020.

Results from the HYBRIT pilot plant, said Tenova, revealed that the DRI obtained using pure hydrogen as a reducing agent instead of fossil-based fuel such as natural gas delivers superior properties and qualities. With a capacity of 1.35 million metric tons per year of fossil-free DRI, the Gällivare demonstration plant will combine HYBRIT and ENERGIRON technologies.

The new installation will be notable in that an electric process heater – claimed to be a world first in an industrial DRI plant – will heat the process gas using green electric power. This will cut carbon emissions to zero, according to Tenova, thus increasing the overall energy efficiency of the process. The new DRI plant will use electric power from different sources to produce sponge iron that will be used by SSAB to make steel – a process that will be fossil-free from end to end.

The current contract covers basic engineering services, while future equipment supply and construction are pending, as prerequisites such as environmental permits and a Final Investment Decision are addressed.

In March, Tenova garnered a contract for an Experimental Direct Reduction Plant (EDRP) operated by Nippon Steel Corp., Japan’s largest steelmaker and one of the world’s leading steel producers. The plant will be installed in the Hasaki R&D Center of Nippon Steel.

This facility will be used for a demonstration of direct hydrogen reduction technology for reducing low-grade iron ore with hydrogen, which was adopted by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization’s (NEDO) Green Innovation Fund in December 2021. The project is being undertaken by a consortium formed by Nippon Steel, JFE Steel and the Japan Research and Development Center for Metals.

The DRI plant, said Tenova, is based on ENERGIRON technology and will use hydrogen as reducing gas, although it will also offer the flexibility to use different gases in any combination or proportion. Accordingly, the plant will be equipped with Tenova’s CO₂ capture equipment to curb overall CO₂ emissions when the plant operates with gases containing carbon.

Lithium Producers Highlight “Firsts” in Plant Design, Commercial-scale DLE Column Success

Atlas Lithium Corp., a Florida-based lithium exploration and development company, reported in early May that its modular Dense Media Separation (DMS) lithium processing plant was in the final stages of fabrication and trial assembly ahead of the anticipated shipment to the Neves project site in Brazil’s Lithium Valley. Atlas Lithium said it remains on track for lithium concentrate production commencing in
Q4 2024.

In what’s claimed to be a first for Brazilian lithium projects, Atlas Lithium said it has designed the processing plant as a series of compact, preassembled modules. Modular configuration, according to the company, reduces the plant’s physical footprint compared to traditional designs, and will also enable more efficient transportation, installation, and commissioning.

Brian Talbot, Atlas Lithium’s COO, said, “Seeing our modular processing plant entering the final fabrication and trial assembly stages is a major milestone. While the core DMS technology is well-established, the modular design we have adopted is an innovation in Brazil’s lithium industry. It will help streamline our path to production and cash flow, while providing a much smaller environmental impact.”

Atlas Lithium’s announcement followed a report by Standard Lithium Ltd. in late April that it had successfully commissioned and validated the performance of what it claimed as the largest continuously-operating Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) equipment in North America: The company recently installed a commercial-scale DLE column at its demonstration plant near El Dorado, Arkansas. The column is a Li-Pro Lithium Selective Sorption (LSS) unit supplied by Koch Technology Solutions.

The company said the column is currently extracting lithium from Smackover Formation brine at an input flow rate of 90 gallons per minute (gpm) and, to the best of the company’s knowledge, is both the largest DLE installation and the only example of a commercial-scale DLE column in operation in North America. Since commissioning, the column has operated continuously and exceeded the design parameters for lithium recovery and rejection of impurities. Key technical highlights include:

Lithium Recovery Efficiency: During a representative two-week period of performance in April 2024, the Li-Pro LSS process achieved an average lithium recovery (after loading and elution) of 97.3% from the 90-gpm incoming brine flow (the average incoming brine contained 208 mg/L lithium during the same period).

Element Rejection Rate: During the same period, the DLE process rejected, on average, over 99% of the key contaminants sodium, calcium, magnesium and potassium from the brine, meaning less than 1% of those contaminants made it through the DLE step into the first lithium chloride solution; and over 95% of boron was rejected.

The company said this high degree of contaminant rejection after DLE results in a substantially purified lithium chloride solution. This eluate can then, through further process steps, be further refined and concentrated to make it ready for conversion to either lithium carbonate or lithium hydroxide. These additional steps have been successfully demonstrated for several years at the demonstration plant, according to Standard Lithium.

Operational Cycles: The full-size commercial scale Li-Pro LSS column had completed over 86 operational cycles, and the Li-Pro LSS technology has completed over 8,500 operational cycles at the demonstration plant.

The company said the performance of the commercial-scale DLE column is being used to validate the design assumptions for its Phase 1A project and also underpins the process design work under way for its South West Arkansas project.

Standard Lithium’s Director, President and COO, Dr. Andy Robinson, commented: “Importantly, the column currently operating at SLI’s demonstration plant is identical to those that will be used in the commercial application, both in terms of the size, design and construction of the column, as well as the sorbent media being used inside. As such, this important collaboration between SLI and KTS at our demonstration plant is the first example in North America of DLE technology being deployed successfully using commercial-scale equipment.”