1.2.2.

1 COREX
The predicted increase in steel demand in Asia will provide opportunities for the
establishment of newer steel making technologies in preference to the traditional
technology of the integrated blast furnace. The two new processing routes will be
direct reduction of the iron ore (DRI) to produce a feedstock, as an alternative to
scrap, for the Electric Arc Furnace (EAF), and direct smelting processes. The
smelting reduction processes do not require the use of coking coal or scrap iron,
rather they are able to use iron ore or DRI and thermal coals directly.
A number of Direct Smelting processes for the direct production of hot metal from
iron ore or DRI are being developed around the world. This is being driven by the
desire for:

the ability to utilise cheaper and more abundant raw materials such as noncoking coals and non-agglomerated ores,
smaller economic plant sizes and,
reduced capital costs and environmental problems through the elimination
of coke ovens and sinter/pellet plants.

The benefits are:

competitive hot metal,

flexibility of operation, and

the product can be fed to an EAF for steelmaking.

The metal produced from such processes is a premium grade product which has a
high value in use to an EAF steelmaker compared to alternative DRI materials.
At this stage the only direct smelting process that is in commercial operation is
the COREX process with plants operating in South Africa, Korea, India and the
USA. The COREX process is a two-stage process. In the first step the iron ore is
reduced in a shaft furnace. In second step the reduced iron ore is melted in the
melter gasifier using the energy generated from the gasification (and partial
combustion) of coal. The reducing gas produced in this second stage is used in the
shaft furnace.
The coal used in the COREX process must supply heat for the devolatilisation of
the coal, the gasification of the char and the melting of the reduced iron from the
reduction shaft. It must also provide sufficient gas to the reduction shaft to reduce

the iron ore feed. Coals most suited for use with the COREX process have an air
dried fixed carbon content from 55 to 70%. Many coals from the Bowen Basin
within Queensland are suited to the COREX process and several mines currently
supply POSCOs plants in Korea.
This is to ensure good gas flow within the melter gasifier and to reduce the carry
over of coal and/or char. The amount of fine coal (minus 5 mm material) that is
fed to the COREX process must be minimised. Therefore all coals must be sized
or agglomerated before use.
There are many alternatives to achieve minimum fines content depending on the
facilities at the loading port, discharge port and COREX plant. The flexibility of
Queensland coal export terminals allows the sizing and blending of coals at the
loading port to meet the needs of COREX operators.
1.2.2.2 HI-Smelt
The HIsmelt Process has its origins in the early1980's when Rio Tinto Limited
identified the potential to adapt the high scrap rate steelmaking and iron bath coal
gasification processes developed by Klockner Werke to the direct smelting of iron
ore. Development of the HIsmelt Process commenced with a 60 tonne K-OBM
converter. After successfully proving the concept, a small scale pilot plant was
constructed and operated at Maxhutte Works in Germany. The plant design was
based on an enclosed horizontal vessel to overcome process containment issues
experienced in the 60 tonne converter trials.
Whilst the process scale-up was successfully demonstrated, the complexity of the
engineering, poor plant availability and difficult operational requirements brought
into question the commercial viability of the plant design. After three years of
operation the plant was substantially reconfigured to address these issues. The
horizontal Smelt Reduction Vessel (SRV) was replaced with a vertical vessel. This
allowed extensive use of water cooled elements in the process top space to
address availability issues. Injection of solids was through water cooled top
injection lances as opposed to submerged tuyeres thereby simplifying the
engineering and overcoming operational issues encountered with the submerged
bottom tuyere used in the horizontal vessel. Installation of the vertical vessel
proved successful.
The plant achieved very high plant availability whilst still maintaining high
process performance despite the increased vessel heat losses due to the added
water cooling.

HIsmelt, short for high-intensity smelting, is the world's first commercial direct
smelting process. It produces premium quality pig iron directly from iron ore.
HIsmelt technology brings many advantages to the steelmaking industry, such as
lower operating costs, lower capital intensity, lower environmental impact, and
greater raw material and operational flexibility.
1.2.2.3 Fastmet
The Fastmet process is a solid reductant based direct reduced iron process using
fine ore mixed with a carbon reductant such as pulverised coal. Developed by
Midrex, as an alternative to gas based processes, plant sizes are suitable for
minimill operations and offer the European steelmaker a viable source of virgin
metal. Kobe Steel commissioned a demonstration plant in 1995.
In this process, a combination of pulverized coal and iron ore fines are made into
pellets.
The pellets are fed into a doughnut-shaped rotary hearth furnace and heated. At
1,350 degrees Celsius, the pellets are reduced in 8-10 minutes. Under high heat,
the pulverized coal serves as the reductant and burns off the oxygen in the iron
ore. DRI can be charged hot to an adjacent melting furnace or converted to
briquettes for merchant shipment. Kobe Steel, Ltd. and Midrex Direct Reduction
Corporation recently announced that they have discovered a refinement of this
process under higher temperatures so that iron ore is reduced in a short 6 to 10
minutes Kobe Steel and Midrex plan to conduct research on the new molten iron
making process in three stages. In Phase 1, running from July 1996 to March
1997, roughly 200 million yen will be invested to study the reaction mechanism
and the basic technology of the process. In Phase 2, October 1996 to June 1998,
the two companies plan to conduct bench-scale testing, investing some 500
million yen. Should the results of the first two phases be promising, the project
will move into Phase 3, where potential process users will be invited to invest in
the construction and operation of a pilot plant.
The products produced by the rotary hearth processes FASTMET, INMETCO,
and IDI contain large quantities of gangue and sulfur which are associated with
the coal reductant. The methods presently used for de-ashing and desulfurizing
coal prior to making the composite pellet for reduction are inadequate because
they are either too costly or they degrade the coal's properties. Improved methods
for separation of the hot reduced iron from the sulfur and gangue are also needed.