Hertha says it makes 99.95% pure iron for magnets, at demo scale

Hertha Metals’ furnace in Conroe, Texas, is already producing one ton of high-purity iron per day. Hertha Metals says the material reaches 99.95% purity, or 3N5, from fully domestic US inputs—the level required by leading rare-earth magnet producers. The Texas startup presents the result as the first time a US company has achieved that purity domestically.

The metal sits behind a familiar set of technologies. High-purity iron makes up roughly 70 percent by weight of neodymium magnets used in electric vehicles, wind turbines, and defense systems. Yet the US imports more than 90 percent of its high-purity iron, primarily from China, while also importing 25 percent of its finished steel. Recycled scrap helps supply American steelmaking, but impurities limit its use in advanced steel grades, according to Hertha.

Hertha’s proposed alternative is a single continuous pyrometallurgical step—a heat-based refining process—instead of the multi-step electrolytic refining typically used for ultra-pure iron. The company says the process controls chemical and metallic impurities on commercial-grade equipment, removing oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and other metals with minimal post-processing. Its flexible-fuel furnace can process low-purity ores, iron ore fines, and millscale waste.

The timing is tied to a supply-chain deadline, but the technology comes first. From January 1, 2027, US Department of Defense mandates will bar Chinese-origin magnets and constituent materials from US defense platforms, pushing defense contractors, EV makers, and wind-turbine builders to qualify non-Chinese suppliers. Hertha says its Chalyx facility will break ground later this year and initially scale to approximately 9,000–10,000 metric tons per year, with a long-term goal of 500,000 tons annually.

So what changes in practice? If the process performs at scale as claimed, magnet manufacturers could have a domestic source for a largely invisible ingredient, while steelmakers could gain another route to use lower-purity ores and millscale waste. Hertha also says natural-gas operation is 30 percent more energy-efficient than standard steelmaking and cuts emissions by at least 50%; a switch to clean hydrogen could enable up to a 98 percent reduction. For now, the evidence is a one-ton-per-day demonstration plant, not commercial production, and the performance figures come from the company itself.