Metso Outotec to supply hydrogen-based concentrate technology in Australia

Metso Outotec has been engaged by TNG Ltd., an Australian resource company, to conduct a study on reducing Mount Peake titanium-vanadium-magnetite concentrates with Circored, a technology that uses hydrogen as its only reductant source. As part of the study, Metso Outotec will perform a techno-economic assessment to integrate the technology into TNG’s innovative Tivan process that yields high-purity vanadium pentoxide, Titanium dioxide and iron ore.

Metso Outotec earlier completed positive test work which confirmed the applicability of hydrogen-based reduction for Mount Peake concentrates for TNG. Now, it will further define the process flowsheet for the Mount Peake project and prepare a preliminary capital cost and operating cost for a Circored plant.

Circored, part of Metso Outotec’s Planet Positive portfolio, is a process that uses hydrogen as the sole reducing agent in the reduction of ores, enabling carbon neutrality for metal processing plants by eliminating the need for expensive and energy intensive pelletizing. It is designed an alternative to the traditional blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace steelmaking.

Circored is currently the only 100% hydrogen-based process for iron ore reduction that has proven its functionality and performance in an industrial-scale demonstration plant. The plant, which commenced operations in 1999 in Trinidad, produced over 300,000 tonnes of high-quality hot briquetted iron over several months of successful operation.