Australia-based Environmental Clean Technologies Limited (ECT), which is in the business of commercializing leading-edge coal and iron-making technologies, has announced that it is preparing to sign an agreement with Indian lignite miner NLC Limited and India's state-owned miner National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) for a pilot plant project in India. The agreement is scheduled to be signed on May 30 in Canberra, Australia.
According to ECT, the project aims to establish the world’s first Australian-designed Coldry and Matmor plant in India’s Tamil Nadu state to diversify the use of lignite (brown coal) in the generation of electricity to include the production of steel at lower cost with significantly lower CO2 emissions. The plant is expected to have an annual production capacity of 500,000 mt per year and A$300 million capital investment is planned for the project.
ECT will have a 49 percent share in the project, while both NCL and NMDC will hold a 25.5 percent share each.
ECT stated that Matmor is the world’s first and only lignite-based primary iron making technology capable of replacing metallurgical coal and high-grade lump iron ore with lower-cost alternative raw materials. Meanwhile, Coldry is a zero-emission, lignite upgrading technology capable of producing a solid fuel for use in power generation, industrial thermal applications and as a feedstock to higher-value downstream applications such as coal to liquids, gas, fertilizer, chemicals, chars, activated carbon, hydrogen and steelmaking (via the Matmor technology).