Helix Carbon, a startup presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt, says it can cut emissions from existing blast furnaces by converting waste CO2 back into carbon monoxide and recycling it into the furnace. That reduces the amount of coke needed to make iron, which lowers both emissions and production costs. The company says replacing a third of coke with recycled CO would save iron producers about $14 per ton. Most steel decarbonization plans call for replacing blast furnaces with hydrogen-based processes. Helix argues that approach ignores the fact that many furnaces run for decades. Instead, its electrolyzer is designed to handle raw blast furnace exhaust, which is a harder technical problem than processing purified CO2. The exact coke reduction is still debated, with estimates ranging from 30% to 90%. The company plans to start with specialty chemicals before targeting steel, since that lets it use waste CO2 streams without waiting for a full blast furnace retrofit. The idea is promising, but the real test is whether the savings hold up at industrial scale and whether the electricity used to run the electrolyzer is clean enough to produce a genuine net emissions cut.
