Hertha Metals Unveils Breakthrough Process to Accelerate American-Made Steel and High-Purity Iron Production

Company’s single-step technology enables cheaper, more efficient, and more abundant production of steel for industry and high-purity iron for rare earth magnets

Hertha Metals today announced it has validated a significant technology breakthrough in modern steelmaking: a single-step process that is cheaper, more energy efficient, and just as scalable as conventional methods. The company has been operating a continuous 1 tonne-per-day pilot plant since late 2024.

Hertha also announced more than $17 million in funding from Khosla Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Fellows, Pear VC, and Clean Energy Ventures, among others. The money raised was used to build and demonstrate the pilot plant, which is also a significant accomplishment for the technology’s capital efficiency.

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Hertha Metals single-step steelmaking pilot plant in Conroe, TX

Onshoring steel and rare earth magnets manufacturing

For over 300 years, steelmaking has been the backbone of industrial society. From cars and housing to AI data centers, steel is one of the most widely used and indispensable materials in the world. The steelmaking process also yields high-purity iron, which makes up 70% of the material used in rare earth permanent magnets — an essential input for everything from advanced defense systems and electric vehicles to robotics, smartphones, and medical devices.

Together, steel and high-purity iron are critical to U.S. industrial growth and national security. Yet for decades, the U.S. has outsourced the production of these critical inputs to foreign suppliers. Today, the U.S. imports 25% of its finished steel and more than 90% of the high-purity iron used in rare earth magnets — the latter almost entirely from China.

While more than 60% of U.S. steel today is made from recycled scrap, scrap is now a limited resource — and many advanced steel grades can’t be made from scrap due to impurities. This requires the production of new “virgin” steel from iron ore to meet rising demand.

But American-made virgin steel still relies on a centuries-old, coal-based, multi-step process that is both expensive and energy-intensive, contributing up to 9% of global industrial energy use and 10% of global emissions.

Cheaper and more efficient steelmaking, at scale

Hertha Metals has developed a unique technology that converts low-grade iron ore of any format directly into molten steel or high-purity iron in a single step. Compared to traditional coal-based methods, Hertha’s process is not only 30% more energy efficient, but significantly cheaper — and even more cost-competitive than production in China. At a time when legacy approaches can’t keep up with rising demand, Hertha is restoring America’s ability to produce two of the most critical building blocks of a secure, resilient, and globally competitive economy.

"When we opened up our headquarters in Conroe in 2023, we set out to demonstrate our technology at an appreciable scale for the steel industry. And in just 12 months, we went from laboratory testing to tonnage per day of continuous production. We are now committed to applying our novel process to quickly filling a gap in domestic production," said Dr. Laureen Meroueh, founder and CEO of Hertha Metals.

"We’re not just reinventing steelmaking; we’re redefining what’s possible in materials, manufacturing, and national resilience."

"Since our seed investment two years ago, we have been impressed with Hertha’s pace and execution, including their successful demonstration of a 1-tonne-per-day plant using natural gas or hydrogen," said Rajesh Swaminathan of Khosla Ventures.

"Their single-step, tunable process doesn’t just materially lower cost and energy use — it fundamentally expands our capacity to produce iron and steel at scale, by unlocking a wider range of iron ore feedstocks. This means the U.S. is able to both secure and accelerate its production of critical iron and steel and bring back domestic manufacturing."

Key benefits of Hertha Metals’ single-step process

• Unlocks cheaper, more abundant raw material inputs. Hertha’s furnace can process iron ore of any grade, including low-purity ores (<60%), iron ore fines, and even millscale (a waste byproduct of conventional steelmaking). This unlocks America’s vast, previously unusable domestic ore reserves and waste products from mines, which significantly reduces input costs.

• Cuts energy use and emissions. Hertha’s furnace is 30% more energy efficient than conventional steelmaking methods and requires far less energy than other electrochemical alternatives. Powered by cheap and abundant domestic natural gas, Hertha’s furnace also cuts emissions by at least 50%. Designed as a flexible-fuel system, Hertha’s furnace can also be powered by clean hydrogen, without any hardware modifications, which would enable up to 98% emissions reductions.

• Modular, drop-in scalability. The Hertha system integrates directly into existing steel mills, avoiding the need for entirely new facilities. Its modular design enables plants as small as 500,000 tonnes per year to operate profitably — achieving competitive steel prices without the multi-million tonne scale required to make conventional steelmaking profitable.

Pilot plant already at 1 tonne per day of continuous production, plans to scale to 9,000 tonnes per year

In less than three years, Hertha built, commissioned, and successfully demonstrated a pilot facility outside Houston capable of producing 1 tonne per day continuously from any feedstock, including waste oxides, using either natural gas or hydrogen.

The company plans to break ground on a new production facility in January 2026, which will have a capacity of more than 9,000 tonnes per year (30 TPD), initially supplying high-purity iron (99.97+% purity) to the U.S. rare earth magnet market.

While most magnet manufacturers focus on rare earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium, NdFeB permanent magnets are 70% high-purity iron by mass — and currently, more than 90% of that high-purity iron is imported primarily from China. Without a domestic source of high-purity iron, the U.S. remains vulnerable to geopolitical and foreign supply chain risks.

Hertha Metals is in active discussions with magnet producers to serve as a reliable U.S. supplier of high-purity iron. In its next phase, the company plans to operate at 500,000 tonnes per year (1,600 TPD) of high-quality steel production capacity, putting them at the same scale as commercial steelmaking micro mills in the U.S. today.

About Hertha Metals

Hertha Metals has pioneered the first technology to convert low-grade iron ore of any format directly into crude steel or high-purity iron in a single step. The company was founded by Dr. Laureen Meroueh, the inventor of the company’s proprietary pyrometallurgical process that underpins Hertha’s breakthrough approach. She holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and previously led a hydrogen production startup. Hertha’s team includes impressive industry veterans from Nucor, U.S. Steel, Arcelormittal, Steel Dynamics, Airbus, and Blue Origin.