Marcelo Mourao

Abstract:

Carbothermic self-reduction of iron ore is known as a fast and reliable method to perform the solid state reduction of iron oxides by carbonaceous materials. Industrial processes already employ this technology, like Fastmet, ITmK3 and Tecnored, and the use of self-reduction agglomerates in the blast furnace has been proposed by some authors. On the other hand, the use of concentrated solar energy to perform several different processes has been extensively studied in recent years. In the present paper, some process routes that combine carbothermic self-reduction of iron ore and concentrated solar energy are analyzed. The proposed routes can easily incorporate different raw materials, like biomass, and some new technologies, like chemical looping combustion and solar hydrogen production, in order to achieve iron and energy production with low carbon consumption and low CO2 production.