Making alloys from advanced oxide mixtures
Steel making process, and the fossil free steel production techniques being developed in Sweden today, are based on a two stage process. The first stage is the direct reduction of iron ore to iron. The second stage is melting of the iron ore together with metal alloys to produce the steel. However, previous work at KTH has demonstrated that it is possible to produce metal/steel directly from oxide mixtures in single process. Importantly, that process requires no melting and no use of fossil fuels. This project therefore explores this one stage process with the aim of creating scientific knowledge of the underlying reaction kinetics of this one stage process.
About this project
This project aims to replace the blast furnace - and some downstream processes - with a single stage process that combines iron/metal reduction with alloying.
In addition to creating a scientific understanding of the reaction kinetics of powder bed tool, we will also work to scale up our previous alloy powder production process.
Planned activities
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Perfom time-resolved experiments on reduction of oxide mixtures
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Undertake thermo-gravimetric analysis at KTH and synchrotron X-ray diffraction studies at DESY, Hamburg, Germany
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Study homogenisation process
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Use experimental data to derive process models
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Validate models, make predictions for new chemistries, process conditions
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Test predictions
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Use new fundamental process knowledge to aid alloy design
People working on this project
