Bo Bjorkman

Abstract:

Reducing agents are considered to be the major portion of most metallurgical processes cost and their production causes severe environmental concerns. In addition, lower energy consumption, lower CO2 emission and waste recycling are driving the reduction metallurgy processes to develop "coke free, zero waste and green processes". In the present overview, attempts to explore the possible alternative reducing agents for metallurgical processes will be presented. The present discussion will be focusing on the following approaches; 1. Replacing expensive carbon bearing materials with relatively less expensive alternate fuels having carbon as well as significant amount of potential reducing constituents such as coal, waste plastic and biomass materials. 2. Producing agglomerates from cheaper raw materials (secondary resources) like carbon rich integrated steel industry wastes. 3. Enhancing the carbon utilization by using higher reactive materials. The present essay is an attempt to explore the feasible utilization of different carbon bearing materials as reductants in metallurgical processes. Different carbon bearing materials is considered, namely, waste plastic materials, biomass, carbon rich iron and steel industry wastes.