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Harsco, LanzaTech Enter Strategic Alliance for Processing Waste Gases
Aug. 22, 2011 Harsco Corp. and clean energy technology company LanzaTech recently announced they have signed a strategic alliance to promote the capture and reuse of steel mill flue gases as an environmentally significant and beneficial source of reliable energy.
The agreement builds on Harsco’s global leadership serving the international steel industry and LanzaTech’s proprietary bioenergy technologies for reducing the carbon footprint of integrated steelmaking operations. Together, the two companies will develop plans to present LanzaTech biotechnology to Harsco’s major steel mill customers and explore potential business relationships for installing and operating commercial facilities at selected sites throughout the world.
LanzaTech is the first company to successfully demonstrate production of fuel-grade ethanol from steel mill gases. Its proprietary biotechnologies convert waste gases from blast furnace, coke oven and BOF operations into low-cost, zero-carbon ethanol, thereby significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions while also providing a commercially scalable alternative to traditional ethanol production and its heavy reliance on agricultural food crops. The new agreement will help to accelerate the introduction of this technology to steelmaking customers throughout the Americas, Europe and selected emerging markets.
“The conversion of industrial waste streams into beneficial ‘green’ resources has long been a Harsco mainstay,” said Harsco Chairman, President and CEO Salvatore Fazzolari. “With LanzaTech, we now add another dimension to our ability to bring innovation to our customers and at the same time, help build a more sustainable environment.”
Added LanzaTech CEO Dr. Jennifer Holmgren, “Harsco’s commitment to minimizing the environmental impact of metal production processes is in line with the unique technology LanzaTech has developed. As heavy industries worldwide face an increasingly stringent regulatory climate, our relationships with committed partners such as Harsco respond to these challenges with technology-based solutions for a cleaner environment that also enable continued growth.”
Founded in New Zealand in 2005, LanzaTech provides a novel gas-liquid fermentation process that produces fuel grade ethanol and key chemical building blocks used to make polymers, plastics and hydrocarbon fuels. With agreements now in place across a variety of sectors including steel, coal, refining and chemicals, LanzaTech’s technology is being scaled rapidly to commercial production.
Harsco Corp. is a global solutions company serving major industries including steel and metals, construction, railways and energy.