The quantification of the environmental impacts of industrial processes via Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) has gained momentum in recent years. The future of our industrial practices is, in fact, closely related to such analyses as governmental policies are promoting the use of greener alternatives. More specifically, the shift of paradigms in the primary production of iron and steel will be closely related to the CO₂ emissions, as well as the embodied energy associated with alternative processes such as H₂ Direction Reduction Iron (DRI) and direct molten oxide electrolysis. Life cycle inventory data are typically available for well-established processes such as blast furnaces and electrical arc furnaces but are lacking for emerging technologies. Moreover, life cycle inventory data are often too generic and cannot account for specific/changing operating conditions. Without solving precise mass and energy balances (which is a required task when simulating a specific reactive process), LCA becomes much less precise and requires the manual introduction of many output impacts.

In this context, it becomes evident that LCA needs to be coupled with robust strategies to simultaneously solve mass and energy balances associated with both existing and emerging technologies. In pyrometallurgy, computational thermochemistry is a well-established tool to perform such a task. We propose here a new interface tool based on the use of the FactSage/ChemApp thermodynamic package called FactFlow to refine conventional LCA and allow the exploration of emerging processes. The application of this new interface for modeling conventional unit operations with standard and innovative reactants for the iron and steel industry is presented. The predictive ability power of the interface is applied to the exploration of emerging processes such as the H₂ DRI and the molten oxide electrolysis processes.