From MIT Technology Review · · 3m
Rethinking how metals are extracted from ore
Outokumpu's EvoMaterials platform uses new chemical pathways to extract metals more efficiently, potentially transforming a century-old industry.
In brief
Outokumpu's EvoMaterials platform uses new chemical pathways to extract metals more efficiently, potentially transforming a century-old industry. Outokumpu is developing EvoMaterials, a technology platform using alternative chemical processes to extract metals more efficiently and sustainably than traditional smelting…
A century of familiar methods
Metal extraction has relied on the same fundamental science for over one hundred years, despite transformations like the Bessemer process and electric arc furnaces.
Why rethink metals production now
Outokumpu, the global leader in sustainable stainless steel, developed EvoMaterials to explore fundamentally different ways to extract metals. The company produces ferrochrome with sixty-seven percent lower carbon footprint than the industry average.
Rising demand for critical metals
As economies expand and electrification increases, demand grows for minerals used in data centers, aerospace, water treatment, energy systems and defence.Many Western economies have reduced domestic processing capacity for the metals those industries depend on.
Chromium's strategic importance
Chromium and other specialty metals are critical for high-temperature and extreme environments. Chromium-based materials play essential roles in aerospace systems, power generation, corrosion-resistant infrastructure and defence technologies where materials face demanding conditions.
Beyond incremental improvement
For decades, metallurgical innovation focused on improving yields, energy efficiency and process control. EvoMaterials explores entirely different chemical pathways rather than optimizing existing processes.
What lab trials revealed
Laboratory work on sulfidation-based processing technologies showed these alternative chemistries could recover valuable metals from lower grade resources and industrial side streams while fundamentally altering how separation processes work.
How the new method works
The technology creates a different chemical environment that enables more efficient extraction with fewer losses and fewer unwanted by-products. It recovers critical materials from resources historically considered waste.
“The technology is a new application for separating metallic elements from materials.”
A platform, not a single process
EvoMaterials is a technology platform where a single scientific breakthrough enables multiple downstream applications. Once mastered for one material system, the same principles can adapt to entirely different metals and mineral resources.
From lab to pilot production
Development began in the United States in two thousand twenty-one using chromite from Outokumpu's Kemi mine in Finland, the only chrome mine in the European Union.
Scaling toward industrial deployment
The New Hampshire facility will scale the technology from laboratory to one-ton production, providing a step toward industrial-scale deployment targeted for twenty thirty. Beyond low-carbon ferrochrome, the platform could adapt to nickel and molybdenum.
A fundamental shift in manufacturing
If successful, EvoMaterials could transform how metals are manufactured, making sustainability, resource efficiency, supply security and economic value outcomes of the same technological architecture rather than separate objectives.
What matters most
Outokumpu is developing EvoMaterials, a technology platform using alternative chemical processes to extract metals more efficiently and sustainably than traditional smelting methods used for over a century.
