A new iron-making technology developed by Chinese researchers is poised to revolutionize the global steel industry. While conventional blast furnaces take five to six hours to produce iron. China developed a new technique can do the same in just three to six seconds. That’s a staggering 3,600-fold increase in speed — which is why the resulting iron is called “flash iron .
” By implementing the new technique, China can dramatically increase its production capacity and reduce its cost and dependence on imported materials. The technology also promises to dramatically reduce carbon emissions during the manufacturing process.
After more than a decade of intensive research, the technology to produce “flash iron” is now poised to revolutionize the domestic and global steel industry. The specifics were described by Zhang Wenhai of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and his team in a peer-reviewed paper published in the journal Nonferrous Metals last November.
The heart of the technology involves injecting finely ground iron ore powder into a superheated furnace, triggering a rapid and intense chemical reaction. The result is an explosion of bright red, incandescent liquid iron droplets, which collect at the bottom of the furnace to form a stream of high-purity iron that can be used directly for smelting or steelmaking in a single step.
In this way, the production speed of iron is increased by 3,600 times. The new method, as explained by Chinese researchers. Works exceptionally well even for low- or medium-yield ores , which are abundant in China. Existing iron production methods are heavily dependent on high-yield ores,and beijing spends a huge amount of money to import these ores from Australia, Brazil and Africa.
China is the third largest producer of iron ore in the world. But also the largest consumer, domestic supply is not enough to meet demand. The country is in fact the largest producer of steel in the world, material obtained from iron.
According to calculations by Zhang and his colleagues. The new technology could improve the energy efficiency of China’s steel industry. By more than a third , eliminating the need for coking coal. This would allow the steel industry to reach its coveted goal of near-zero carbon emissions.https://youtu.be/Kd9GE0NA1Po?si=2llKbm9ZyRw54r96