Development characteristics of ironmaking technology in many countries in the world

      The blast furnace capacity in Japan is increasing, but the number of blast furnaces is decreasing. Increasing the use of non coking coal and low-quality iron ore will reduce the cost of iron making raw materials. The challenges facing ironmaking technology in Japan are the aging of equipment (efforts are being made to extend the life of blast furnace hearth and coke oven) and the rise of raw material prices (especially the prices of iron ore and coking coal). At the same time, Japan is also trying to improve the productivity of blast furnace to make it more than 2.25t/m3 · D, and reduce the fuel consumption to 500kg/t (the iron coke ratio is less than 300kg/t, and the coal ratio is about 200kg/t).

      Another research direction in the field of iron making in Japan is to reduce CO2 emissions. To this end, Japan has built a new coking plant based on the coking technology "scope21". In addition, the alliance formed by Japanese steel producers uses "course50" technology to study other operation methods to reduce CO2 emissions.

the republic of korea

      South Korean blast furnace ironmaking is facing the challenge of high raw material prices. POSCO develops the iron and steel industry by importing low-cost raw materials. The production of molten iron in Korea has increased sharply. Table 1 lists some current indicators of POSCO (including Finex production) and Hyundai Steel.
 

North American Free Trade Agreement

      Dr. poveromo from North America summarized the iron making raw materials and iron making technology in the United States, and pointed out that the blast furnace can use the cheap natural gas obtained from shale deposits, and based on the production of sponge iron, increase the amount of gas flowing into the blast furnace and returning from it (at present, Newco steel is preparing to build this project). At present, NAFTA natural gas is cheap, and the use of coal in blast furnace production will not have great development in the near future.

      With the support of the American Iron and Steel Association, the University of Utah has developed a new technology - Flash iron making technology, which directly reduces iron oxides by gas in the flash reduction process. Compared with the current blast furnace technology, this technology is expected to reduce fuel consumption by 32% - 57% and CO2 emission by 61% - 96%. The new process uses gases such as natural gas, hydrogen, synthetic gas or the mixture of these gases as reductant, and the iron produced is used as raw material of steelmaking process or part of continuous direct steelmaking process.

Development of alternative technologies for blast furnace ironmaking process

      Dr. Lungen of the German iron and Steel Association summarized the rapid development of alternative technologies for blast furnace ironmaking in recent decades: 72 direct reduction ironmaking systems and 59 smelting reduction ironmaking systems, each of which has realized industrial production in some form. However, the blast furnace ironmaking process is still the main body of ironmaking. How a region or a company correctly selects the smelting process depends on many factors, such as the price and availability of iron ore, the quality of ore, the availability and cost of coking coal, the price of imported and exported natural gas, coke oven gas, blast furnace gas and electric energy, and the emission cost of CO2.