Development of a Novel Flash Ironmaking Technology with Greatly Reduced Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions

Abstract

Despite the dominance of the blast furnace ironmaking process, increasing attention is being paid to the development of new technologies with lower energy consumption and CO 2 emissions. At the University of Utah, a novel flash ironmaking technology to meet these demands is under development. This technology eliminates the highly problematic cokemaking and pelletization/sintering steps by directly utilizing iron ore concentrate, which is currently produced in large quantities in North America and elsewhere. This transformative technology is expected to allow significant energy saving and reduced CO 2 emissions compared with the blast furnace process. It has been demonstrated that iron of more than 95 % metallization can be obtained by reduction with hydrogen or a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen in 2-7 s at temperatures of 1473-1823 K. The development of the technology has gone through the stages of proof-of-concept and small laboratory flash reactor tests. A large prototype bench reactor that has most of the features of an eventual industrial reactor has been commissioned. In this paper, some details of advances made in the development are discussed.

A Review on Prevention of Sticking during Fluidized Bed Reduction of Fine Iron Ore

“…H. Y. Sohn et al [179][180][181] conducted hydrogen reduction experiments on iron concentrate particles of about 30 μm at the temperatures above 1 573 K. It was found that the iron ore particles can achieve a reduction degree of 90%-99% in a few seconds. So they put forward the idea of flash ironmaking technology.…”

Energy Consumption and CO2 Emissions in Ironmaking and Development of a Novel Flash Technology

“…The utilization of iron ore fines or concentrates free of pelletizing and sintering is one of the alternate ways to lower CO 2 emissions and energy consumption [14]. These are important reasons for the development of and increasing attention paid to alternate ironmaking technologies.…”

“…Given the limited potential for increased efficiency associated with current technologies and considering the other driving forces presented above, a Flash Ironmaking Technology (FIT) has recently been developed at the University of Utah as an innovative alternate ironmaking process [14,[20][21][22][26][27][28][29][30][31]. This technology reduces iron ore concentrate in a flash reactor with a suitable reductant gas such as hydrogen or natural gas, and possibly bio/coal gas or a combination thereof.…”

“…In this case, the flash reactor would mainly consist of the shaft portion of the facility shown in Figure 1. In a high-temperature operation, where iron is produced in a molten state, the process can be used as an overall continuous direct steelmaking process, as depicted in Figure 1 [28,32].…”

Experimental Investigation and Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation of a Novel Flash Ironmaking Process Based on Partial Combustion of Natural Gas in a Reactor

“…The novel flash ironmaking technology conceived by Sohn is based on the gaseous reduction of iron oxide concentrate in suspension in the temperature range of 1423–1873 K (1150–1600 °C). Sohn and co‐workers have performed many experimental and bench‐scale investigations, kinetics determination, flowsheet development, and economic analyses to prove the technical and economic feasibilities of the novel technology. A set of experiments were performed by Elzohiery and co‐workers where a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide was used to reduce the magnetite concentrate in different operating temperature ranges.…”