33% Coke Cut Could Save Iron Makers $14 a Ton, Helix Carbon Says

A startup pitching at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 says it has found a way to cut the iron industry's carbon emissions by recycling the very pollution blast furnaces produce — and to do it at a profit. Helix Carbon says swapping a third of the coke used in a blast furnace for recycled carbon monoxide could save iron producers $14 per ton, according to the company and TechCrunch.

The pitch is aimed squarely at an industry that has resisted overhauls of its core equipment. "Any attempt to decarbonize the steel industry without dealing with the blast furnace is not going to work," David Brown, Helix Carbon's co-founder and chief executive, told TechCrunch.

How does Helix Carbon's process work?

Blast furnaces turn iron ore into metallic iron by burning coke, a processed form of coal. The coke combustion produces carbon monoxide, which strips oxygen atoms from the iron ore in a reaction that releases large volumes of carbon dioxide, normally vented into the atmosphere, TechCrunch reported.

Helix Carbon's system uses an electrolyzer — a device that applies electricity and a catalyst to break an oxygen atom off a CO2 molecule — to convert that waste CO2 back into carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide is then injected back into the blast furnace, where it can do the same oxygen-stripping work that previously required burning more coke.

Brown told TechCrunch that most electrolyzers can only process purified, concentrated carbon dioxide and require the exhaust to be cleaned before use. Helix Carbon's design, he said, can handle the full, unprocessed exhaust stream straight from the blast furnace.

How much coke can the technology actually replace?

The company and outside researchers do not agree on the ceiling. Brown told TechCrunch that some scientific papers suggest up to 90% of a blast furnace's coke could eventually be eliminated, while other studies put the realistic figure closer to 30% to 40%. Helix Carbon's near-term pitch to iron producers is more conservative: start by replacing 33% of coke use.

What would that save iron producers?

At that 33% replacement rate, Helix Carbon says producers would save $14 per ton of iron. Brown argued the number matters because of how thin margins run in the sector. "That may not seem like a lot, but margins in the iron industry are famously thin," he told TechCrunch.

By the numbers

• 33% — the share of blast furnace coke Helix Carbon says producers could replace in its initial rollout
• $14 — the savings per ton of iron the company projects from that 33% substitution
• 90% — the upper-end coke reduction some scientific papers suggest is technically possible, per Brown
• 30%–40% — the more conservative coke-reduction range other studies cite
• $2 trillion — the combined size of the global iron and steel market, according to Grand View Research, as cited by TechCrunch

Why target blast furnaces instead of replacing them?

Other startups in the space have tried to cut steel emissions by developing entirely new ways to make iron and steel, bypassing blast furnaces altogether. Helix Carbon is wagering that the installed base of furnaces is too durable and too embedded in existing plants to swap out wholesale. "There are blast furnaces that have lived for over 100 years," Brown told TechCrunch — a durability that cuts both ways, since it means operators have little appetite for scrapping functioning equipment but also little urgency to replace it quickly.

By retrofitting the furnaces already running rather than designing replacements, Helix Carbon's technology could, in theory, reach the industry faster than approaches that require producers to build new plants from scratch. Whether blast furnace operators move at the pace the technology would require is a separate question the company has not yet answered.

Who will buy the technology first?

Helix Carbon is not starting with steelmakers. Brown told TechCrunch the company plans to court the specialty chemicals industry first to generate revenue sooner, saying Helix Carbon does not need to capture carbon dioxide at full blast-furnace scale to find paying customers in that sector. The steel and iron industry's slow equipment cycles, Brown indicated, make it a longer-term target even as it remains the larger prize.

What to watch

• Whether Helix Carbon signs pilot or commercial agreements with specialty chemicals customers before approaching blast furnace operators directly
• Independent verification of the $14-per-ton savings figure and the 33% coke-replacement rate outside of company statements
• Whether electrolyzer performance holds up when handling raw, unprocessed blast furnace exhaust at industrial scale over time
• How iron and steel producers, who operate on long equipment cycles, respond to a retrofit pitch rather than a request to replace existing furnaces

Helix Carbon's claims have not been independently verified beyond the comments Brown provided to TechCrunch, and the company itself acknowledges that the upper limit of how much coke can be replaced remains disputed in the scientific literature.

AlterEgo — A keyboard for character voices. Five free persona rewrites a day.