Rio Tinto (RIO) Invests in R&D Facility for BioIron Testing

Rio Tinto (RIO) announced that it will invest $143 million to develop a research and development facility in Western Australia to test the effectiveness of its breakthrough low-carbon ironmaking process, BioIron. BioIron uses raw biomass material produced from agricultural by-products instead of metallurgical coal and is heated using a combination of gas released by the biomass and high-efficiency microwaves powered by renewable energy, which turns the iron ore into metallic iron. This process uses approxim ...