This founder is making cheaper, cleaner steel

这位创始人正在制造更便宜、更清洁的钢铁

The steel industry isn’t exactly known for innovation. Very little has changed about purifying iron ore since the process was invented and commercialized in the 1850s. The majority of steelmakers melt solid iron ore at dizzyingly high temperatures inside blast furnaces, where the material reacts with gases to trigger chemical reactions that remove oxygen. It then undergoes further refining to purify it before it is made into products like rebar and car frames. The process relies on coal, and it generates roughly 7% of the carbon emissions that drive climate change—about as much as the fashion industry. Decarbonization has proved difficult: Profit margins are tight and furnaces have long service lives, making investment tough to justify.

钢铁行业向来以缺乏创新著称。自 19 世纪 50 年代铁矿石提炼工艺发明并商业化以来，其核心流程几乎没有发生过变化。大多数钢铁制造商在鼓风炉内以极高温度熔化固体铁矿石，通过材料与气体的化学反应来去除氧气。随后，这些材料还需经过进一步精炼，才能被制成钢筋和汽车框架等产品。这一过程依赖煤炭，产生的碳排放量约占全球气候变化驱动因素的 7%——与时尚产业相当。脱碳之路困难重重：利润空间微薄，且高炉的使用寿命很长，这使得相关投资难以获得正当理由。

Now Laureen Meroueh may have found a way to clean up steelmaking without driving up the price. Meroueh, the founder of Hertha Metals, invented a new furnace that simplifies the chemistry behind the process. Her method turns iron ore into refined liquid steel in a single step, and it swaps coal for natural gas. Together, those changes slash emissions by at least half, she says, and cut costs by 25% compared with steelmaking business as usual. If it catches on, the tech could be transformative.

现在，Laureen Meroueh 可能找到了一种在不提高价格的前提下实现钢铁生产清洁化的方法。Hertha Metals 的创始人 Meroueh 发明了一种新型熔炉，简化了该工艺背后的化学原理。她的方法只需一步即可将铁矿石转化为精炼液态钢，并用天然气取代了煤炭。她表示，这些改进共同将排放量至少减少了一半，并使成本比传统炼钢方式降低了 25%。如果这项技术得以普及，它将具有变革性意义。

“There’s huge value in reducing the size of this production system,” says Iryna Zenyuk, director of the National Fuel Cell Research Center at the University of California, Irvine. “They’re massive. They’re inefficient and require a lot of energy input, so even if they just save energy efficiency, that’s already a big step.” Hertha’s approach focuses on what it can fix about the steel industry now, as opposed to waiting around for a zero-carbon system.

加州大学欧文分校国家燃料电池研究中心主任 Iryna Zenyuk 表示：“缩小这种生产系统的规模具有巨大的价值。它们体积庞大、效率低下且需要大量的能源投入，因此即使只是提升能源效率，也是迈出了一大步。”Hertha 的方法侧重于解决钢铁行业当前存在的问题，而不是坐等零碳系统的出现。

Still, it’s a risky endeavor, but pushing limits isn’t new for Meroueh. At 12 she was accepted into a pilot program to take college-level courses through Florida Atlantic University in lieu of a traditional secondary education. She was immediately drawn to engineering and explored topics including calculus and ocean wave energy. Despite the rigorous coursework, she would spend hours sitting in trees and surfing, which fostered a deep appreciation for nature and a desire to safeguard it. “I don’t know how you can’t be drawn toward trying to help protect that,” she says.

尽管这是一项冒险的尝试，但挑战极限对 Meroueh 来说并不陌生。12 岁时，她被佛罗里达大西洋大学的一个试点项目录取，通过修读大学课程来代替传统的中学教育。她立刻被工程学所吸引，并探索了微积分和海浪能等课题。尽管课程繁重，她仍会花数小时坐在树上或冲浪，这培养了她对大自然的深厚感情以及保护自然的愿望。她说：“我不知道一个人怎么能不被吸引去保护这一切。”

Now 34, Meroueh has let that passion inform her professional goals. After finishing her PhD in mechanical engineering at MIT, she led a green hydrogen startup before founding Hertha in 2022. A first-generation Lebanese-American from an entrepreneurial family, she saw starting her own company as a typical path. “Seeing how common it is to take that jump to start your own business is what made me feel like ‘This is normal,’” she explains on a video call from her office at Hertha’s pilot plant in Conroe, Texas, just north of Houston.

现年 34 岁的 Meroueh 将这份热情融入了自己的职业目标中。在麻省理工学院获得机械工程博士学位后，她曾领导过一家绿色氢能初创公司，随后于 2022 年创立了 Hertha。作为来自创业家庭的第一代黎巴嫩裔美国人，她将创业视为一条常规路径。在德克萨斯州康罗市（休斯顿以北）Hertha 试点工厂的办公室里，她通过视频通话解释道：“看到创业是多么普遍，让我觉得‘这很正常’。”

That facility can produce one metric ton of steel per day. “One ton per day is a big metric for steel,” says Rajesh Swaminathan, a partner at Khosla Ventures, one of the company’s investors. (Hertha had raised about $20 million in funding as of July 2026.) Swaminathan says the company’s scale-up is “impressive,” especially given how little the team has spent. Competitors, he notes, have created far less steel with $50 million or $100 million in funding.

该设施每天可生产一公吨钢材。公司投资者之一、Khosla Ventures 的合伙人 Rajesh Swaminathan 表示：“每天一吨对于钢铁生产来说是一个重要的指标。”（截至 2026 年 7 月，Hertha 已筹集了约 2000 万美元的资金。）Swaminathan 称该公司的规模化进展“令人印象深刻”，尤其是考虑到团队投入的资金非常少。他指出，竞争对手在获得 5000 万甚至 1 亿美元的资金后，产出的钢材却远少于此。

Hertha’s approach focuses on what it can fix about the industry now, as opposed to waiting around for a zero-carbon system. While other approaches to making green steel center on using hydrogen to free oxygen from iron ore—a method that could one day cut or eliminate emissions—Meroueh says Hertha is content for the time being with a continued reliance on fossil fuels, mainly to keep costs down. The current Hertha plant could eventually switch to a fully decarbonized system without drastically changing the hardware, she says, if hydrogen becomes more affordable.

Hertha 的方法侧重于解决钢铁行业当前存在的问题，而不是坐等零碳系统的出现。虽然其他绿色炼钢方法侧重于利用氢气从铁矿石中提取氧气——这种方法未来有望减少或消除排放——但 Meroueh 表示，Hertha 目前满足于继续依赖化石燃料，主要是为了控制成本。她说，如果未来氢气变得更加经济实惠，现有的 Hertha 工厂最终可以在不大幅更换硬件的情况下，切换到完全脱碳的系统。

In the meantime, plans are underway to expand into a new plant next to the existing one. The facility is slated to produce 10,000 metric tons of high-purity steel per year and should reach full capacity by the end of 2027. By 2030, Meroueh believes, Hertha can up its output to 500,000 metric tons per year with the addition of a third site. That’s only a fraction of the approximately 80 million metric tons of steel produced annually in the US, but Zenyuk says making even one metric ton is still an achievement. In Meroueh’s mind, the world isn’t going to outgrow its need for steel, so she’s asking another question: “How can we be smarter about how we make things … so that it’s also not going to harm us in the long term?”

与此同时，公司计划在现有工厂旁扩建一座新工厂。该设施预计每年可生产 10,000 公吨高纯度钢材，并应在 2027 年底前达到满负荷生产。Meroueh 认为，到 2030 年，随着第三个基地的加入，Hertha 的年产量可提升至 500,000 公吨。这仅占美国每年约 8000 万公吨钢铁产量的一小部分，但 Zenyuk 表示，即使是生产一公吨也是一项成就。在 Meroueh 看来，世界对钢铁的需求不会消失，因此她提出了另一个问题：“我们如何才能更聪明地制造产品……从而确保它在长期内不会对我们造成伤害？”