Adiabatic Carbon Rate of Alternative Ironmaking Processes to Produce Hot Metal

摘要

From economic viability and sustainable development of view, the future alternative ironmaking processes, in general, may be classified into two representative routes, "Pre-reduction-Smelting reduction" process and "Direct reduction-Melting" process. In the present work, aimed for hot metal production, the carbon rate (in kg tHM~(-1)) is considered as the yardstick for the measurement of the "goodness" of these two processes, because it reflects the consumption of coal and energy, and the amount of carbon dioxide eventually to be emitted to atmosphere. By the thermodynamic calculation, under the idealized conditions, the total adiabatic carbon rate along "Direct reduction-Melting" process is approximately 145 kg tHM~(-1) lower than that along "Pre-reduction-Smelting reduction" process. Therefore, direct reduction would likely lead to an alternative process with much lower carbon rate, and it should be reasonable and successfully developed.