A project to convert waste gases to low carbon fuels and chemicals is being extended through an agreement between LanzaTech and New Zealand Steel.
The agreement gives NZ Steel, and its Australian parent company Bluescope Steel, the opportunity to use LanzaTech’s technology commercially.
The two companies established a partnership in 2008 when LanzaTech built its pilot plant to produce ethanol from waste gases at NZ Steel’s mill at Glenbrook, south Auckland.
Reducing carbon emissions play a key role in reducing the environmental footprint of the steel industry. LanzaTech’s process captures and diverts to fuel around a third of the carbon that would otherwise be emitted as CO2 through the steelmaking process.
The NZ Steel pilot has proven LanzaTech’s proprietary fermentation process is scalable from the laboratory. Some of the ethanol produced at Glenbrook has been further converted into aviation biofuel as well as fuel grade ethanol.