8th International Congress on Science and Technology of Ironmaking - ICSTI 2018

Midrex and Primetals Technologies have successfully completed their latest HBI projects for voestalpine Texas LLC/USA and LGOK/Russia. This paper discusses some further possibilities for improvements of Direct reduction plants in order to increase the plant competitiveness and/or flexibility. Such plant improvements have been either already implemented in the latest projects for the first time or were recently developed by Midrex and/or Primetals Technologies. Some of this plant improvements are: - Waste Heat Recovery for Top gas and Reformer Flue Gas – Production of steam or electricity based on framework conditions - Bottom Seal Gas Hot Dry Dedusting System – Recovery of hot DRI dust for increase of product yield - Slurry Treatment by Chamber Filter Presses – Efficient dewatering of slurry from clarifier with low operating and maintenance cost - Process Water Degasser – Degassing of process water from CO2 to improve water quality and operation/maintenance cost - Adjustable Carbon Technology (ACT) – Increase of carbon content depending on HBI off-taker/user requirements - DRIPAX Carbon and Metallization Prediction – Improvement of plant operation by stable operation - Level-2 Expert System Improvements – Increased support of operation team Such improvements either reduce the OPEX costs, increase the yield, improve the operation/maintenance and/or increase the availability of a Midrex plant and can be implemented for new direct reduction plants or retrofitted for existing plants.