At a signing ceremony Wednesday, executives and government officials inked a deal to scale up Environmental Clean Technologies Ltd.’s lignite-based technologies, dubbed Coldry and Matmor, and build a demonstration plant. 

The Coldry technology converts brown coal into the equivalent of black coal, which can then be burned to generate electricity. The Matmor ironmaking process uses lignite as a reductant and heat source.

"Matmor represents the most significant departure from primary ironmaking since the advent of coke-based smelting in 1709. By utilizing a predominantly hydrogen-based pathway, Matmor enables the use of abundant, lower-cost alternative raw materials and lower CO₂ intensity," said Clean Technologies chairman Glenn Fozard.

He said the agreement with India’s National Mineral Development Corporation and NLC India Ltd. is the culmination of four years’ worth of work.

"Today marks a significant milestone on the journey which, all going to plan, will see the commissioning of our Coldry-Matmor pilot plant in India by the end of 2019," he said. 

The project entails two phases, the first of which will be an AUD35 million research and development phase funded by the Indian companies. The goal is to build a pilot-scale plant that combines both technologies and is capable of producing about 2 metric tons of metal per hour.

If successful, the partners will move on to a second phase, through which a commercial-scale plant capable of making 500,000 metric tons annually would be built.

Environmental Clean Technologies has more details about the agreement here.