Perth-based green materials platform company Element Zero is the inaugural Western Australian winner of the Global Bloomberg Pioneers 2024 award.
The Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) Pioneers award is given to innovative and disruptive companies helping drive the transition to a net-zero economy.
Element Zero says it has won the award for its development of a novel approach to cost effectively and efficiently produce iron, silicon, and other future-facing metals with zero carbon emissions.
The company’s technology targets the removal of nearly 30% of global industrial emissions.
BNEF, which runs the annual competition, named Element Zero the winner of its ‘Wildcard’ category, which recognises companies that develop technologies that will play an important role in decarbonisation but fall outside its three main award categories linked to energy, buildings, and fuels.
“BNEF set up the Pioneers award 14 years ago to recognise, and by doing so to accelerate, the progress of climate-tech innovators,” says BloombergNEF selection committee co-chair and global head of Technology, Industry & Innovation research Claire Curry.
“The work of these decarbonisation innovators is more important than ever in this critical decade: the search for new climate solutions has never been as urgent.”
Element Zero’s alkaline electrochemical process allows the company to process the full spectrum of iron ores, including the core 95% of Australian and Brazilian global trade in iron ore, which cannot currently be processed using direct reduction or other lower carbon processing technology.
The company is already operating a trial plant that is producing zero-carbon iron at its Malaga Perth facility, which has a goal of processing 5 million tonnes per annum of iron ore feed, producing around 2.7 million tonnes of high-purity iron.
Element Zero Founder and CEO Michael Masterman says with iron and steel production alone accounting for more than 8% of global carbon emissions, the award is a recognition of the company’s technology and the valuable role it can play in reducing global carbon emissions.
Element Zero is a green materials platform company working towards zero-carbon iron and steel and other future-facing metal production. Headquartered in Australia, the company has developed a cost-effective and efficient pathway to convert iron ore and other minerals into their pure metal form with zero carbon emissions.
The modular approach of the Element Zero process aims to address 30% of global industrial carbon dioxide emissions from iron and steelmaking. Element Zero is developing a portfolio of projects to accelerate market adoption, the first of which will be located in northwest Australia, the world’s largest source and holder of iron ore reserves.
Write to Adam Drought at Mining.com.au
Images: Element Zero
