Bio-Oil and American-Made Steel: How Charm Will Decarbonize Ironmaking

Steel is the backbone of modern industry, but America’s steel supply chain is heavily dependent on imports that leave jobs and industries vulnerable.

The U.S. is the largest importer of steel in the world, meaning we send billions of dollars overseas while missing out on the opportunity to build a stronger, more resilient domestic supply chain. Revitalizing U.S. steelmaking isn’t just about national security—it’s about bringing back high-quality manufacturing jobs, stabilizing costs, and driving innovation in production.

At Charm, we’re charting a path to produce low-carbon iron—right here in America.

Led by our ironmaking expert Brian Jamieson, we recently received the Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) Technology Committee’s 2024 Best Paper Award from the Association for Iron and Steel Technology (AIST) for our work on “Carbon-Negative Ironmaking Using Fast Pyrolysis Bio-Oil Gasification”. We demonstrated that bio-oil syngas can replace coking coal and even natural gas as a reducing agent to produce metallic iron. In other words, we’re pioneering a way to make iron that’s cleaner, more cost-effective, and American-made.

Image Caption: Ironmaking Expert Brian Jamieson holds a copy of the winning paper in front of a Charm Pyrolyzer

Our near-term focus remains coming down the bio-oil production cost curve, making affordable and high-quality carbon removals. But in doing so, we’re charting a path to make domestically-produced, carbon-negative iron a reality.

How Ironmaking Works (and Why It’s a Carbon Problem)

Iron rarely exists in nature as pure metal, certainly not in the volumes required to support modern society. 

It is locked inside iron ore, a rusty rock composed of chemically bound oxygen, iron, and some other minerals, and needs to be chemically separated from the oxygen via a reduction process to become usable metallic iron. The vast majority of this reduction happens in blast furnaces using carbon-rich metallurgical coke from special high quality coal, where the process strips oxygen from iron ore and releases CO₂ in the process. That’s why steelmaking accounts for nearly 8% of global carbon emissions.

To combat this, countries are imposing carbon-based tariffs on imported steel, favoring lower-emission alternatives such as natural gas based DRI, hydrogen reduction, novel electrolytic processes, and carbon capture. This is putting pressure on manufacturers to find cleaner ways to make iron—or risk paying hefty penalties. Volatility of global supply chains and rising costs make it more critical than ever to strengthen domestic production of steel and the iron needed to make it. 

Bio-Oil => Syngas for Green Iron

Here’s where Charm’s bio-oil comes in. Instead of relying on coal, we can gasify bio-oil—a liquid made from plant residuals like corn stalks—into syngas (a mix of carbon monoxide and hydrogen). Bio-oil is a low carbon-intensity energy source for the ironmaking process. This bio-oil, gasified into syngas, then reacts with iron ore to remove its oxygen atoms producing pure metallic iron without the need for fossil fuels. Even better, “Direct Reduced Iron” processes like this can also use a carbon capture system as part of the overall process. This wouldn’t just yield lower emissions, it would mean that producing Charm iron would actually deliver a net removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere.

Our research demonstrates that, indeed, bio-oil can be an alternative reducing agent in direct reduced ironmaking. In the process, bio-oil is converted into syngas using an entrained flow gasifier, and the resulting syngas is then used to reduce iron ore pellets, resulting in the removal of oxygen from the ore and production of metallic iron. These are early, promising results that show that bio-oil syngas represents a promising substitute in the production of green steel. 

Image Caption: Charm Bio-Oil Gasifier Mini-Pilot (the orange sky is from the 2020 California wildfires)

A Future of Green Steel, Powered by Bio-Oil

By using bio-oil derived syngas to reduce iron ore, we’re paving the way for a clean domestic steel supply chain—one that’s not just better for the climate, but also more resilient to trade policies and tariffs.

Image Caption: The future of carbon negative ironmaking with Charm Industrial!While Charm is focused on carbon removal first and foremost, the opportunity to decarbonize heavy industry will have a multiplicative benefit for our climate. Scaling this solution depends on early CDR buyers. Investing in durable removal today accelerates both CO₂ removals and accelerates cleaner, more resilient steel production in America.

Want to help build a future where carbon-negative steel is the norm? We’re hiring! 🚀