PHASE II CALDERON PROCESS TO PRODUCE DIRECT REDUCED IRON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT PROJECT

Calderon, Albert

Calderon Energy Company

关键词: Natural Gas;    Progress Report;    Steels;    Metal Industry;    01 Coal, Lignite, And Peat;   

DOI  :  10.2172/860857
RP-ID  :  none
RP-ID  :  FC22-95PC92638
RP-ID  :  860857

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

The commercialization path of the Calderon technology for making a feedstock for steelmaking with assistance from DOE initially focused on making coke and work was done which proved that the Calderon technology is capable of making good coke for hard driving blast furnaces. U.S. Steel which participated in such demonstration felt that the Calderon technology would be more meaningful in lowering the costs of making steel by adapting it to the making of iron--thus obviating the need for coke. U.S. Steel and Calderon teamed up to jointly work together to demonstrate that the Calderon technology will produce in a closed system iron units from iron concentrate (ore) and coal competitively by eliminating pelletizing, sintering, coking and blast furnace operation. If such process steps could be eliminated, a huge reduction in polluting emissions and greenhouse gases (including CO{sub 2}) relating to steelmaking would ensue. Such reduction will restructure the steel industry away from the very energy-intensive steelmaking steps currently practiced and drastically reduce costs of making steel. The development of a technology to lower U.S. steelmaking costs and become globally competitive is a priority of major importance. Therefore, the development work which Calderon is conducting presently under this Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy becomes more crucial than ever. During the 3rd quarter of 2005 which the present report covers, virtually all the effort to advance the Calderon technology to make iron units was concentrated towards forming a team with a steelmaker who needs both iron units in the form of hot metal and a substitute for natural gas (SNG), both being major contributors to higher costs in steelmaking. Calderon felt that a very good candidate would be Steel Dynamics (SDI) by virtue that it operates a rotary hearth facility in Butler, Indiana that uses large amounts of natural gas to reduce briquettes made from ore and coal that they subsequently melt in a submerged arc furnace that is a large consumer of electric power. This facility is operated as a division of SDI under the name of Iron Dynamics (IDI). It is no secret that IDI has had and still has a great number of operational problems, including high cost for natural gas.