The carbon-intensive blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BF/BOF) steelmaking route has to be replaced, and one way is to use hydrogen-based direct reduction in combination with an electric arc furnace (EAF). Most current pilot projects focus on using shaft furnaces for direct reduction with hydrogen. However, this method would result in the need to produce several hundred million tons of additional high-quality DR-grade pellets every year, with the associated impacts on pellet availability and prices. An alternative is hydrogen-based direct reduction using fine ore instead of pellets. Metso Outotec's Circored technology is the only process for iron ore reduction based on 100% hydrogen that has proven its functionality and performance in an industrial-scale pilot plant. In this paper, the principles of the Circored fine ore direct reduction process and the results of the industrial-scale pilot plant operation are described, along with the possible role of the Circored process in the industry's transition towards green steelmaking.
NSTL
