比尔·盖茨领衔风投，注资无碳炼钢

由微软联合创始人比尔·盖茨领导的风投公司投资了一家旨在显著减少钢铁行业碳排放的初创公司。

Breakthrough Energy Ventures成为Boston Metal 2000万美元融资轮的领投方，后者正在开发的工艺是通过用电力取代传统的重污染技术来减少碳排放。

《科学》杂志于2018年6月发表的一项研究结果显示，钢铁行业每年排放17亿吨二氧化碳，比3.60亿辆乘用车的碳排放量还高。

常规炼钢方法使用氧化铁和焦炭，而焦炭是由煤制成的高含碳燃料。

Boston Metal的首席执行官塔都·卡内罗说：“大多数金属在自然界中都以氧化物的形式存在。要得到金属，就得打破氧化链，把金属释放出来。而如果用碳来承担这项任务，就会产生二氧化碳。”

Boston Metal采用的工艺叫“金属氧化物电解”，可以在不产生碳排放的情况下生产金属，唯一的副产品是氧气。

卡内罗对《财富》杂志表示，这项工艺中使用了“氧化物汤羹。会有不同的氧化物汤羹供选择，具体取决于要生产什么金属。”。

这种混合物里的其他氧化物必须较为稳定，这样电解槽——也就是生产金属的容器通电后，想要的金属就会以液态形式聚集在底部。过一段时间就可以把液态金属从电解槽里排出来，再把“排放孔”堵上，就可以继续电解了。

卡内罗说此项工艺还未实现商业化，但在成本方面将可以和传统技术抗衡。此外，由于电价不断下降而煤炭成本持续上升，今后Boston Metal的技术有可能成为一种企业更能负担得起的方案。

用Boston Metal的工艺获得液态金属后，还需要在其中添加其他原材料才能达到行业标准。比如，钢材的成分就包括铁、碳以及其他元素。

理论上，整个炼钢过程——从发电厂供电到钢材冶炼本身，都可以不排放二氧化碳。但考虑到大多数发电厂目前依赖的是化石燃料，而非可再生能源，在这方面还有很长的路要走。

Boston Metal希望用自己的创新技术来改变这种局面。麻省理工学院的教授唐纳德·R·萨多维在氧化物电解方面花费了大量时间，这是美国航空航天局一项研究竞赛的一部分，内容是从月球岩石中提取含氧化合物。提出用电解槽从岩石中分离含氧化合物并产生熔融态金属后，萨多维开始考虑这项技术在地球上的潜力。

2012年，萨多维教授和安托万·艾伦诺尔、吉姆·尤尔科成立了Boston Electrometallurgical，也就是现在的Boston Metal。一年后三人发表了一篇论文，证明金属氧化物电解法可以在无碳排放的情况下生产钢材。这家公司也迎来了第一位投资者——因戈·温德斯，后者是巴西矿业风投公司Terrativa Minerais的创始人及总裁，还创立了化肥公司Advanced Potash Technologies。

拿到美国国防部、能源部和国家科学基金会的拨款后，Boston Metal获得了足够的初期资金（共1200万美元）来开发第一个半工业化电解槽，用于展示自己的技术。

卡内罗说：“现在我们需要针对具体的金属制造工业化电解槽。” 今后三年，Boston Metal的目标是建立一家可年产1000吨钒铁的示范性工厂。钒铁是一种合金，可以添加到钢材中提高其强度，它将成为Boston Metal的第一次工业级尝试。

在完成最新一轮融资后，Boston Metal计划开启商业化进程并聘请更多工程师。

除了Breakthrough Energy Ventures，参加本轮融资的还有Prelude Ventures和麻省理工学院旗下的风投机构The Engine，从而使融资总额达到3200万美元。

The Engine的管理合伙人兼CEO凯蒂·瑞伊表示：“实现全球零碳排放的一个关键环节就是钢铁生产脱碳。多年来Boston Metal一直在开发这项突破性技术，而且已经无限接近市场化了。”

Breakthrough Energy Ventures的合伙人卡迈克尔·罗伯茨说Boston Metal“有潜力让体量巨大的钢铁制造业脱碳，并且经济地为全世界提供一系列高质量产品。”

Breaththrough Energy Ventures关注的是可以减少碳排放的初创公司，这次投资就是其中一例，此前它还投资过一家聚变能公司、一家电池厂商以及一家开发地热的企业。

据卡内罗介绍，Boston Metal已经在和几家公司合作，后者有意成为他们的首批客户，但他未披露这些公司的名称。

他表示：“金属行业一直是个非常保守的行业，脱碳，特别是钢材脱碳，意义重大。这可不是件小事，而是真正的具有革命性。我们正走在拯救世界的路上。”（财富中文网）

译者：Charlie

审校：夏林

A venture capital firm led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has invested in a startup that is trying to significantly cut carbon emissions from steel manufacturing.

Breakthrough Energy Ventures led a $20 million funding round in Boston Metal, which is developing a process to reduce carbon emissions in steel making by using electricity instead of traditional pollution-heavy techniques.

Iron and steel manufacturing results in 1.7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, or more than the emissions from 360 million passenger cars, according to a study published in Science in June 2018.

Typically, steel is made by burning iron oxide with coke, a carbon-rich fuel made from coal.

“Most metals are in nature as a form of oxide,” explains Tadeu Carneiro, chief executive of Boston Metal. “In order to get the metal, you have to break the bonds in the oxide and free the metal from it. When you do that with carbon, you generate CO2.”

Boston Metal uses a process called metal oxide electrolysis, which allows pure metals to be produced without carbon emissions. The only byproduct is oxygen.

The process uses a “soup of oxides,” Carneiro told Fortune. “Depending on the metal you want to produce, you have a different soup of oxides.”

The other oxides in the mixture must be relatively stable so that when electricity is introduced to the electrolytic cell—the container in which the metal is reduced—the desired metal pools in a pure liquid form at the bottom. The cell is tapped every so often to extract the metal, the hole is plugged, and the process continues.

Carneiro says the process is not yet commercially available, but will be cost-competitive with traditional techniques. Furthermore, while electricity is getting cheaper, he added, coal costs are rising, potentially making Boston Metal’s technique a more affordable option in the future.

Certain materials must be added to the liquid metal after it’s reduced by Boston Metal’s process to meet industry specifications. Steel, for example, includes iron, carbon, and other elements.

In theory, the entire steel manufacturing process—from the power plant supplying the electricity to the steel manufacturing itself—could become carbon-free. But that’s a long way off considering that most power plants today rely on fossil fuels, not renewable energy.

Boston Metal hopes to change that with its novel technology. Prof. Donald R. Sadoway of MIT latched onto the idea of metal oxide electrolysis, or MOE, as part of a NASA research competition to extract oxygen from lunar rocks. After proposing the use of an electrolytic cell to break the oxygen compounds from rocks, producing molten metal, Sadoway considered the potential for the technology on Earth.

He founded the Boston Electrometallurgical, now known as Boston Metal, with Antoine Allanore and Jim Yurko in 2012. A year later, Sadoway published a paper with two colleagues demonstrating that MOE could produce emissions-free steel, and the company gained its first investor: Ingo Wender, the founder and president of Terrativa Minerais, a Brazil-based mining venture company, and founder of Advanced Potash Technologies, a fertilizer company.

With grants from the Defense Department, Energy Department, and National Science Foundation, Boston Metal had enough funding early on—$12 million—to develop its first semi-industrial cell to demonstrate its technology.

“Now we need to develop industrial cells for specific metals,” said Carneiro. Over the next three years, Boston Metal aims to develop a demonstration plant to manufacture 1,000 tons of ferrovanadium annually. This alloy can be added to steel as a hardener, and will be Boston Metal’s first industrial-scale venture.

With its latest round of funding, Boston Metal plans to go commercial and hire more engineers.

Aside from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the latest funding round also included Prelude Ventures and MIT offshoot The Engine, bringing its total funding raised to $32 million.

“A critical piece to achieving a carbon-free world is the decarbonization of steel production,” said Katie Rae, managing partner and CEO of The Engine. “Boston Metal has spent years developing its groundbreaking technology and is incredibly close to bringing it to market.”

Carmichael Roberts, a partner with Breakthrough Energy Ventures, said that Boston Metal “has the potential to decarbonize the massive steel manufacturing industry, and economically deliver a set of high-quality products on a global scale.”

The investment is an example of Breaththrough Energy Ventures’ focus on startups that can reduce carbon emissions. Previous investments include a fusion energy company, a battery maker, and another working on geothermal power.

According to Carneiro, Boston Metal is already working with several unidentified companies that have an eye of becoming its first customers.

“The metals industry tends to be a very conservative industry and getting rid of CO2 emissions, especially for steel, is a big deal. It’s not a small thing, and therefore this is really revolutionizing,” said Carneiro. “We are on a path to help saving the world.”