European Direct Reduced Iron and Alternative Ironmaking Conference - IRONMASTERS 2022

The steel industry, especially in Europe, is under strong pressure to reduce its $\rm CO_2$-emissions to fulfill the required climate protection goals. Even a change from the BF/BOF-route to the DRI/EAF-route is not sufficient, if the DRI-production is still based on natural gas. Thus, hydrogen-based reduction is under strong investigation and first pilot projects will be installed. However, hydrogen shows some disadvantages in terms of volumetric energy density. High pressure and volumes are required to store hydrogen for the continuous production of DRI. An alternative reduction agent could be ammonia, which is also $\rm CO_2$-free, if it is produced by renewable energy. Ammonia shows a much higher energy density, since it can easily be liquified. In this study, the reduction of iron ore by means of hydrogen and by means of ammonia are investigated. A possible process layout is given for both processes. Process paramters like temperatures, compositions and energy consumption will be determined by the process simulation tool DWSIM.