Across the globe, most of today’s steel is made in enormous, multi-billion-dollar plants that use a coal-based process that has changed little in 300 years. Meanwhile, the United States is the world’s largest steel importer.
Laureen Meroueh SM ’18, PhD ’20, a MITEI Energy Scholar from 2018-2020, is founder and CEO of a company scaling a new cost-competitive steel production system here in the United States that is powered by natural gas and electricity. MIT-startup Hertha Metals’ innovation, which can also run on hydrogen, utilizes a single step steelmaking process. This allows for reductions in both cost and emissions compared to traditional systems. As a MITEI Energy Scholar, Meroueh conducted research on hydrogen fuel.
Read more about this work via MIT News.