Using secondary energy sources in liquid-phase reduction

Today, in the power industry and traditional metallurgy, reliance on organic fuel sets a limit on further significant improvement. The efficiency of the initial fuel is around 20% in the metallurgical industry and 37% in the power industry. In other words, around two thirds of the energy in the initial fuel is discharged to the environment. How effectively the physical and chemical heat of the exhaust gases at metallurgical enterprises may be used in production heaters or waste-heat boilers depends on the heating process employed, the quantity of gases, the gas temperature, and the conditions of gas supply. Currently, attention focuses on COREX and ROMELT liquid-phase reduction processes [1‐4], as well as metallurgical processes corresponding to a jet‐ emulsion reactor [1]. There are various options for utilizing the energy of the exhaust gases in metallurgy. The best is the integrated approach (Fig. 1), in which the waste-gas energy may be used both inside and outside the system for liquid-phase reduction. Internal utilization of the waste-gas heat to warm the fuel, the oxidant, and the batch increases the productivity of the system, with an accompanying decrease in fuel consumption. External heat utilization , with the generation of additional technological or energy product, ensures fuel economy in the waste-heat boilers. The waste-heat boilers generate high-pressure steam, which may be used in a steam turbine. This, in turn, may generate electrical, mechanical, and pneumatic energy. For integrated technological heat utilization, the total thermal efficiency η Σ is