THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF THE CARBOTHERMIC REDUCTION OF FE2O3 USING SOLAR-ENERGY

The amount of coke needed to reduce iron ores to iron could be substantially reduced if it were used exclusively as a reducing agent and process heat were supplied by an alternative, e.g., solar, energy source. It could be reduced still further if CO2 rather than CO were the only gaseous product of the reduction. We have examined thermodynamically how this might be achieved and describe an idealization of a blast furnace for achieving it. We conducted some exploratory experiments on the reduction of Fe2O3 with graphite in the nominal temperature range 1300-2390 K in a solar furnace to test and gain experience with a new kind of receiver-reactor. These experiments are described. In the course of the work, we obtained encouraging results when using a plastic (polycarbonate) window to isolate our system from the atmosphere and protect a graphite reactor up to 1380 K.