Optimization of the Iron Ore Direct Reduction Process through Multiscale Process Modeling

Bechara, Rami; Hamadeh, Hamzeh; Mirgaux, Olivier; Patisson, Fabrice

doi:10.3390/ma11071094

Cited by 65 publications

(53 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Direct reduction of iron ore refers to the conversion of solid iron ore to metallic iron without conversion to the liquid phase [37]. Majority of the direct reduced iron (DRI) [38] is produced by reacting iron oxide with hydrocarbon-based reducing gases produced from reforming natural gas or coal gasification [39][40][41][42]. DRI technology has been deployed commercially and five percent of the total global steel is produced through the DRI route [43].…”

Section: Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reduction reactions occurring inside the shaft furnace, with syngas as the reducing gas are depicted in Equations (1) and (2). Exothermic reduction of Hematite by CO [42,47]:…”

Section: Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A thorough understanding of the kinetics of the reaction and design of the shaft furnace is required to calculate the exact composition and temperature of the waste gas stream. Typically, the exhaust gases in a DRI shaft furnace exit the furnace at a temperature of 275°C to 400°C [42]. An exhaust gas temperature of 250°C has been considered in the model to account for the endothermic reaction between hydrogen and iron ore.…”

Section: Direct Reduction Shaft Furnacementioning

confidence: 99%

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Decarbonization of the Iron and Steel Industry with Direct Reduction of Iron Ore with Green Hydrogen

2020

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Production of iron and steel releases seven percent of the global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Incremental changes in present primary steel production technologies would not be sufficient to meet the emission reduction targets. Replacing coke, used in the blast furnaces as a reducing agent, with hydrogen produced from water electrolysis has the potential to reduce emissions from iron and steel production substantially. Mass and energy flow model based on an open-source software (Python) has been developed in this work to explore the feasibility of using hydrogen direct reduction of iron ore (HDRI) coupled with electric arc furnace (EAF) for carbon-free steel production. Modeling results show that HDRI-EAF technology could reduce specific emissions from steel production in the EU by more than 35%, at present grid emission levels (295 kgCO 2 /MWh). The energy consumption for 1 ton of liquid steel (tls) production through the HDRI-EAF route was found to be 3.72 MWh, which is slightly more than the 3.48 MWh required for steel production through the blast furnace (BF) basic oxygen furnace route (BOF). Pellet making and steel finishing processes have not been considered. Sensitivity analysis revealed that electrolyzer efficiency is the most important factor affecting the system energy consumption, while the grid emission factor is strongly correlated with the overall system emissions.Energies 2020, 13, 758 2 of 23 country, on the other hand, has a per capita steel consumption of 66.3 kg. As the standard of living in developing countries increases, demand for steel will grow further. The demand for steel will increase until 2050 [4]. Steel could be produced by reducing iron ore or by recycling steel scrap in an electric arc furnace (EAF). Iron and steel sector releases seven percent of the total CO 2 emission and 16% of the total industrial emission of CO 2 globally [5,6]. Limited availability of scrap and demand for special grades of steel, which can not be produced from steel recycling, would lead to an increased demand for ore based steel production in the future. More than 80% [3] of the ore based steel is produced through the BF-BOF route. The BF-BOF route uses approximately 18 GJ/t of energy supplied from coal [7], and has an emission intensity of approximately 1870 kgCO 2 /tls [4,8] (considering pellet making, steel rolling and finishing steps). Majority of the emissions is released from the blast furnace (61%) and coke making plant (27%) [9].Some of the alternative processes with significantly reduced carbon footprint are BF-BOF with carbon capture and storage (CCS), direct reduction of iron ore (DRI) with CCS, electrowining (electrolysis of iron ore) [10] and green hydrogen-based DRI production. Integration of CCS in steelmaking processes is being explored under the ultra-Low carbon dioxide(CO 2 ) steelmaking (ULCOS) [11,12] project. However, concerns over the safe transport and storage of captured makes CCS options less attractive. Electrowining or molten electrolysis of iron ore is a relatively new technol...

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Section: Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reduction reactions occurring inside the shaft furnace, with syngas as the reducing gas are depicted in Equations (1) and (2). Exothermic reduction of Hematite by CO [42,47]:…”

Section: Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Direct Reduction Shaft Furnacementioning

confidence: 99%

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Decarbonization of the Iron and Steel Industry with Direct Reduction of Iron Ore with Green Hydrogen

2020

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“…At present,direct reduced iron (DRI) is produced by reacting solid iron oxide with hydrocarbon based reducing gases [17,18].Reduction reactions occurs below the melting temperature of iron (1535°C).The technology has been deployed commercially and five percent of the total global steel is produced through the DRI route [19].Lower capital investment and space requirements,and, lower complexity in design and operation make it easier to build and operate a DRI plant.With recent increase in cheap shale gas production,there has been an up surge in installation of DRI plants .Majority of the DRI plants,are based on MIDREX [19] and HYL [20] technologies.In the commercial installations reduction of iron ore is carried out with a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen produced from steam methane reforming [21,22].Reduction reactions occurring inside the shaft furnace are depicted in Equation 1-2 [22]. Exothermic reduction of Hematite by CO:…”

Section: Conceptmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lowering the Carbon Footprint of Steel Production Using Hydrogen Direct Reduction of Iron Ore and Molten Metal Methane Pyrolysis

Bhaskar¹,

Assadi²,

Somehsaraei³

2019

Preprint

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Reducing emissions from the iron and steel industry is essential to achieve the Paris climate goals. A new system to reduce the carbon footprint of steel production is proposed in this article by coupling hydrogen direct reduction of iron ore (H-DRI) and natural gas pyrolysis on liquid metal surface inside a bubble column reactor. If grid electricity from EU is used, the emissions would be 435 kg CO2/tls without considering methane leakage from the extraction, storage and transport of natural gas. Solid carbon, produced as a by-product of natural gas decomposition, finds applications in many industrial sectors, including as a replacement for coal in coke ovens. Specific energy consumption (SEC) of the proposed system is approximately 6.3 MWh per ton of liquid steel(tls). It is higher than other competing technologies, 3.48 MWh/tls for water electrolysis based DRI, and, 4.3-4.5 MWh/tls for natural gas based DRI and blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) respectively. Utilization of large quantities of natural gas, where the carbon remains unused, is the major reason for high SEC. Preliminary analysis of the system revealed that it has the potential to compete with existing technologies to produce CO2 free steel, if renewable electricity is used. Further studies on the kinetics of the bubble column reactor, H-DRI shaft furnace, design and sizing of components, along with building of industrial prototypes are required to improve the understanding of the system performance.

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“…With the aim to correctly describe the lateral gas feed, some studies introduced two-dimensional models [13][14][15]; however, these models did not consider the presence of methane, which is responsible for important reactions in the process, in the reducing gas. More recently, several authors introduced more reactions [16] and also accounted for the cooling zone [17][18] and some even developed plant models [19]; however, these works were limited to one-dimensional models.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detailed Modeling of the Direct Reduction of Iron Ore in a Shaft Furnace

Hamadeh¹,

Mirgaux²,

Patisson³

2018

Preprint

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This paper addresses the modeling of the iron ore direct reduction process in the context of the reduction in CO2 emissions from the steel industry. The shaft furnace is divided into three sections (reduction, transition, and cooling), and the model is two-dimensional (cylindrical geometry for the upper sections and conical geometry for the lower one) to correctly describe the lateral gas feed and the cooling gas outlet. This model relies on a detailed description of the main physical-chemical and thermal phenomena using a multi-scale approach. The moving bed is assumed to be comprised of pellets of grains and crystallites. Eight heterogeneous and two homogeneous chemical reactions are taken into account. The local mass, energy and momentum balances are numerically solved using the finite volume method. This model was successfully validated by simulating the shaft furnaces of two direct reduction plants of different capacities. The calculated results reveal the detailed interior behavior of the shaft furnace operation. Eight different zones can be distinguished according to their predominant thermal and reaction characteristics. An important finding is the presence of a central zone of lesser temperature and conversion.

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Optimization of the Iron Ore Direct Reduction Process through Multiscale Process Modeling

Cited by 65 publications

References 18 publications

Decarbonization of the Iron and Steel Industry with Direct Reduction of Iron Ore with Green Hydrogen

Decarbonization of the Iron and Steel Industry with Direct Reduction of Iron Ore with Green Hydrogen

Lowering the Carbon Footprint of Steel Production Using Hydrogen Direct Reduction of Iron Ore and Molten Metal Methane Pyrolysis

Detailed Modeling of the Direct Reduction of Iron Ore in a Shaft Furnace

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