Review of hydrogen-rich ironmaking technology in blast furnace

ABSTRACT

The global warming promotes the steel industry to replace part of coke by injecting hydrogen-rich fuel into the blast furnace to reduce CO₂ emissions and energy consumption. In this paper, the injected hydrogen-rich fuels and effects of hydrogen-rich smelting on burden reduction and property evolution were introduced, and the hot events related to hydrogen metallurgy were summarized. Increasing hydrogen content changes the thermodynamic and kinetic conditions of chemical reactions, changing the reduction behaviour of iron oxides and affecting the burden properties evolution and soft melting behaviour. Correspondingly the coke solution loss alters due to more H₂O existence. In addition, the temperature and gas flow distribution are altered, affecting the iron oxide reduction rate and efficiency of blast furnace operation process. At present, some hydrogen metallurgy projects have been launched, making expected progress, which provides reference and thinking for the large-scale industrial application of hydrogen in blast furnace.

KEYWORDS:

• Hydrogen-rich blast furnace
• CO₂ mitigation
• hydrogen-rich reduction
• burden properties

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number U1960205].