Iron-fuel combustors to power mining operations

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Increasing energy costs are a serious problem for the mining industries in Quebec and Canada. For the iron industry in the Cote Nord region, another problem is the congregation or sintering of the iron pellets after production and during storage and transport. Qube-4D is currently looking for novel solutions to both the problem of sintering of iron pellets in transport and for providing power needs to such remote mining operations to offset the current use of diesel fuel. Metals are reduced materials, with the primary energy input into the metal-production process being that required to remove the oxygen from the mined metal oxides into the pure metal, that can therefore be oxidized, or burned, to release energy. The Alternative Fuels Laboratory at McGill is actively investigating the use of direct metal combustion with air and the reaction of metals with water, to produce heat and hydrogen, as low-carbon energy commodities. Metal fuels could reduce our dependence on fossil-fuel resources and enable the storage and trade of clean primary energy from solar, wind, or nuclear resources. The mining industry, as well as the North more broadly, requires energy that must be shipped in remotely, such as the diesel fuel that is ubiquitously burned for power generation. The present Engage grant will investigate, in collaboration with Qube-4D engineers, the concept of partially oxidizing the iron pellets in a combustion system to dry and protect them from sintering, as well as the use of iron as a recyclable fuel for providing back up, or continuous, power for mine operation. Metal fuels allow the storage of clean energy at high density and can also be burned at fast rates to provide the high power levels that, today, can only be provided by fossil fuel combustion.