A method for operating a blast furnace is presented, said method comprising the steps of collecting a stream of blast furnace gas from the blast furnace; feeding said stream of blast furnace gas and a hydrocarbon containing gas to a reforming plant comprising at least one reformer; reforming said stream of blast furnace gas and said hydrocarbon containing gas in the reforming plant en to produce a stream of syngas; and feeding at least a portion of said stream of syngas to the blast furnace; wherein a stream of h % is added to the hydrocarbon containing gas before step (c) and/or to the stream of blast furnace gas before step (c) and/or to the stream of syngas before step (d) and/or to the tuyere of the blast furnace, wherein the feeding of at least a portion of said stream of syngas to the blast furnace occurs through the shaft of the blast furnace and/or through the tuyere of the blast furnace, and wherein the utilization efficiency of the hydrogen in a blast furnace plant comprising the blast furnace, the reforming plant and a cowper plant is above 60%.

A method and apparatus for producing direct reduced iron (DRI), including: generating a reducing gas in a coal gasifier using coal, oxygen, steam, and a first coke oven gas (COG) stream as inputs to the coal gasifier; and delivering the reducing gas to a shaft furnace and exposing iron ore agglomerates to the reducing gas to form metallic iron agglomerates. The method further includes delivering a second COG stream directly to the shaft furnace.

The present invention relates to method and apparatus for treating iron-contained raw material using bath smelting furnace. An iron-contained raw material is mixed with a reducing agent. The mixture is added into a bath smelting furnace. The enriched oxygen is blown into the bath. The smelt is conducted at a temperature of 1200-1600 C. Compared with the traditional process of sintering/pellet-blast furnace smelting or rotary furnace reduction-electrical furnace smelting separation, the present invention has the remarkable advantages of short process, strong raw material adaptability, high product quality, low energy consumption, low pollution, etc. The present invention provides a new technology direction for effectively and comprehensively utilizing the iron-contained resource and has a wide application prospect.

Methods and systems for producing DRI utilizing a petroleum refinery bottoms (i.e. heavy fuel oil, vacuum residue, visbreaker tar, asphalt, etc.) or petroleum coke gasifier and a hot gas cleaner. Cooling of the hot synthesis gas generated by the petroleum refinery bottoms or petroleum coke gasifier to <200 C is not necessary. Rather, the synthesis gas from the petroleum refinery bottoms or petroleum coke gasifier is desulfurized and dedusted at high temperature (>350 C) using a hot gas cleaner, well known to those of ordinary skill in the art, although not in such an application. This hot gas cleaner may be high pressure or low pressure.

A direct reduced iron manufacturing system includes a gas reformer for supplying steam to reform natural gas, a gas heater being a heating unit for heating a reformed gas reformed by the gas reformer to a predetermined temperature, a direct reduction furnace for reducing iron ore directly into reduced iron using a high-temperature reducing gas, an acid gas removal unit having an acid gas component absorber and a regenerator for releasing the acid gas, and a recovery gas introduction line for supplying a recovery gas released from the regenerator to each of a reforming furnace of the gas reformer and a furnace of the gas heater.

Methods and systems for producing direct reduced iron having increased carbon content, comprising: providing a reformed gas stream from a reformer; delivering the reformed gas stream to a carbon monoxide recovery unit to form a carbon monoxide-rich gas stream and a hydrogen-rich gas stream; and delivering the carbon-monoxide-rich gas stream to a direct reduction furnace and exposing partially or completely reduced iron oxide to the carbon monoxide-rich gas stream to increase the carbon content of resulting direct reduced iron. The carbon monoxide-rich gas stream is delivered to one of a transition zone and a cooling zone of the direct reduction furnace. Optionally, the method further comprises mixing the carbon monoxide-rich gas stream with a hydrocarbon-rich gas stream.

Included are: a direct reduction furnace for reducing iron ore directly into reduced iron using a high-temperature reducing gas including hydrogen and carbon monoxide, an acid gas removal unit having an acid gas component absorber for removing, with an absorbent such as an amine-based solvent, acid gas components (CO.sub.2, H.sub.2S) in a reduction furnace flue gas discharged from the direct reduction furnace, and a regenerator for releasing the acid gas, and a degradation product removal unit for separating and removing a degradation product in the absorbent used by circulating through the absorber and the regenerator.

A method of starting a molten-bath based melting process includes commencing supplying cold oxygen-containing gas and cold carbonaceous material into a main chamber of a smelting vessel within at most 3 hours after completing a hot metal charge into the vessel and igniting the carbonaceous material and heating the main chamber and molten metal in the main chamber.

A gas production apparatus includes: a separator configured to separate and capture a separated gas including carbon dioxide as a main component from an exhaust gas of exhaust gas equipment; reactors which are downstream of the separator, each of the reactors: (i) containing a reductant configured to contact the separated gas to produce carbon monoxide through a reduction reaction of carbon dioxide; (ii) being configured to separate at least some oxygen atoms split off from carbon dioxide in the reduction reaction; and (iii) having a reducing agent containing a metal oxide configured to reduce carbon dioxide as the reductant; a reducer configured to supply a reducing gas containing a reducing substance configured to reduce the reducing agent oxidized by contact with carbon dioxide; a pressure regulator configured to regulate a pressure of the separated gas; and a flow regulator configured to regulate a flow rate of the separated gas.