Dr. Joseph J. Poveromo

Joseph J. Poveromo, age 74, received his B.S. Degree in Chemical Engineering at Rennselaer Polytechnic in Troy, New York in 1968. After spending one year as a process engineer at the Sinclair Oil Technical Center in Harvey, Ill, he joined the Center for Process Metallurgy, Department of Chemical Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNYAB) in 1969 where he studied under the academic advisement of the late Prof. Julian Szekely. He received his M.S. degree based on his thesis on the “Vapor Deposition of Zinc” in 1971. His Ph.D. dissertation on “Blast Furnace Raceway and Stack Fluid Dynamics” was completed in 1974.

Dr. Poveromo joined the Bethlehem Steel Research Department at the Homer Research Labs in Bethlehem, PA in 1974. His main research and development were initially focused on the blast furnace process where he made significant contributions to Bethlehem’s large, modern blast furnace operations, as well as vintage smaller BF operations. He developed improved charging practices for 2-bell top furnaces, coordinated establishment of data acquisition & control systems, and initiated granulated coal injection and natural gas co-injection practices. His value-in-use studies on coking coal and coke properties helped to reduce BF energy consumption by quantifying benefits of improved coke properties on BF operation. He then became heavily involved in Bethlehem’s iron ore operations in the USA and Canada, serving on the Technical Advisory Committees of Iron Ore Company of Canada and Hibbing Taconite in Minnesota. He promoted improvements in pellet chemical, physical and metallurgical properties of pellets that led to BF performance improvements.

FLOGEN SIPS 2022 Awards: Dr. Joseph Poveromo, President, Raw Materials & Ironmaking Global, USA