State of the art of direct reduction and smelting reduction of iron ores

The processes for the direct reduction and smelting reduction of iron ores have, compared to the blast furnace, the advantage of being independent on coke. These processes will gather importance in electric are furnace based mini mills. The blast furnace will remain the most economical supplier of t he pre-product for steelmaking in integrated steel works working on the bas is of iron ore reduction. This is valid particularly for the location Germa ny. The DRI capacity and production has steadily increased. The overall utiliza tion of the plants has reached 81 % in 2000 at a DRI production of 43.2 mil lion t. For the future a further increase of capacity and production is exp ected for the electric are furnace route. The only industrial used smelting reduction process today is the Corex process which is based on lumpy ore c harge. The three operated plants together have produced 1.95 million t hot metal in 2000. All fine ore smelting reduction processes are in the develop ment, pilot or demonstration stage.