Development of Direct Reduction Process and Smelting Reduction Processes for the Steel Production

Abstract

Although the blast furnace and basic oxygen furnace are going to be primary routes for steel production in future, the steelmaking industry using the electric arc furnace route will continue to grow. The importance of high-quality steel products manufactured by direct reduction of iron ore and/or by smelting reduction processes has been increasing. In the past decade the world steel production by direct reduction rose by 140 per cent, from about 20 to about 49.5 Mt/year. In this paper major industrial processes involving direct reduction and smelting reduction of iron ore are described, and their development is analysed.

Keywords

• Steel
• direct reduction
• smelting reduction
• coal
• natural gas