The rapid development of gas-based (Midrex, HYL, ENERGIRON) and coal-based (DRyIron, Iron Dynamics, Fastmet, Fastmelt, Itmk3) technologies for the direct production of iron and blast-furnace-less iron metallurgy (COREX, FINEX, Hismelt, ROMELT) in the second half of the 20th Century failed to lessen the dominant role of blast-furnace smelting in extractive iron metallurgy. The blast furnace is expected to maintain this dominance in the 21st Century based on its popularity, economic benefits, and energy advantages. Direct ironmaking technologies that produce a solid metallized product which can be used to make pig iron and steel are also not true alternatives to blast-furnace smelting, but they can play an important role as sources of a clean metallic charge material for electric steelmaking or as processes which can recycle iron-bearing waste products at integrated metallurgical plants. Commercial processes in iron metallurgy that do not employ a blast furnace are inferior to blast-furnace smelting in terms of productivity, the amount of energy consumed, and technical and technological reliability.
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Translated from Metallurg, No. 6, pp. 27–32, June, 2010.
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Kurunov, I.F. The direct production of iron and alternatives to the blast furnace in iron metallurgy for the 21st century. Metallurgist 54, 335–342 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11015-010-9300-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11015-010-9300-7