Fortescue green iron rival wins Arena cash to scale up Perth demonstration plant

Element Zero, the upstart Pilbara green iron contender and survivor of an intellectual property challenge from Fortescue, has won a $26 million grant from Arena to support the scale-up of its Perth demonstration plant.

Co-founded by former Fortescue executives Michael Masterman Michael Masterman, Bart Kolodziejczyk, and Bjorn Winther-Jensen, Element Zero is developing an electrochemical process to convert iron ore into high-purity iron using renewable electricity.

In Perth, the company’s $53.65 Green Iron Electroreduction Demonstration Module project currently produces 10 kg a day of continuous high-purity iron, powered by renewable energy.

Element Zero says the $26 million from Arena, announced on Wednesday, will be used to scale the technology, first to 1 tonne of high-purity metallic iron per day, and then – subject to conditions – to 10 tonnes per day.

Masterman, Element Zero CEO, says the company’s longer-term strategy is to deploy multiple modules at commercial scale in the Pilbara, close to the source of both iron ore and abundant renewables.

“Our goal is to combine Australian iron ore, renewable electricity and Australian-developed technology to produce green iron in Australia, rather than exporting our iron ore and leaving the value-adding to happen overseas,” he said in a statement.

“We already have our technology operating continuously in Perth. This project is about taking the next major step – scaling first to one tonne per day and then 10 tonnes per day, while establishing the modular plant design that we ultimately intend to deploy at commercial scale in the Pilbara.”

If this all sounds eerily familiar, that’s because it is. Fortescue and its billionaire founder Andrew Forrest have poured billions into a years-long ambition for green iron production that had expected to produce more than 1,500 tonnes a year from Fortescue’s Christmas Creek facility starting in 2025.

And while this level of success has not quite come about, Fortescue just two weeks ago announced “first hot metal” at its Pilbara Christmas Creek hub, using a blended ore feedstock in its electric smelting furnace.

So closely aligned are the two companies’ plans that Forrest mounted a legal challenge against his three former employees, accusing them of misappropriating Fortescue’s intellectual property on carbon dioxide-free iron production when they left to found Element Zero in 2022.

That battle is over, however, having been settled in court in November of last year – dismissed by consent from both sides, with no admissions and with both sides agreeing to pay their own costs.

In a statement on Wednesday, Element Zero says its electrochemical technology is being developed as an “alternative pathway for converting iron ore into high-purity iron without the direct carbon emissions ….[and] for use with a range of Australian iron ores, including haematite.

“The company has progressively developed the technology in Western Australia from laboratory batch processing to its current continuous plant operation.”

Acting Arena CEO Chris Faris says its support of the Element Zero project will help build the evidence needed to understand whether the technology can contribute to future green iron production in Australia.

“Australia has a significant opportunity to use our renewable energy and iron ore resources to build a globally competitive green iron industry,” Faris said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Arena’s funding will support Element Zero to test its Australian-developed electrochemical technology at progressively larger pilot scale, generate operating data and assess its potential using a range of Australian iron ores.”

To join more than 29,000 others and get the latest clean energy news delivered straight to your inbox, for free, click here to subscribe to our free daily newsletter.