7th European Steel Technology and Application Days - ESTAD 2025

Calix’s Zero Emissions Steel Technology (ZESTY): Breakthrough pilot testing results for the Hydrogen Direct Reduced Iron (H-DRI) process

7 Oct 2025, 15:50

20m

Margherita I (Palaexpo Veronafiere)

Oral Presentation Hydrogen-based Steelmaking Hydrogen-Based Direct Reduction (H-DRI)

Speaker

Sebastiaan van Dorp (Calix)

Description

Calix’s ZESTY technology is a flash reduction process based on the indirectly heated Calix Flash Calcination (CFC) technology. In 2024, Calix completed a second testing campaign (over 100 runs) with 6 Australian-sourced hematite/goethite iron ores.
The campaign demonstrated it is possible to achieve commercially viable metallisation degrees for a range of ores approaching near-theoretical minimum hydrogen consumption.

This presentation and paper covers the ore testing campaign, the preliminary results on downstream testing of the H-DRIs produced, and the status of TRL development and commercial scale-up, including the design-ready 30,000 tonnes per annum H-DRI demonstration plant.