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The HIsarna steelmaking process is a process for primary steelmaking in which iron ore is processed almost directly into steel. The process employs a new type of blast furnace called a ''Cyclone Converter Furnace'', which makes it possible to skip the process of manufacturing pig iron pellets that is necessary for the basic oxygen steelmaking process. Without the necessity for this preparatory step the HIsarna process is more energy-efficient and has a lower carbon footprint than traditional steelmaking processes. The HIsarna process was developed in stages and with pauses at Koninklijke Hoogovens / Corus IJmuiden, starting in 1986. The final stages were made possible through the Ultra-Low Carbon Dioxide Steelmaking (ULCOS) consortium and cooperation between Corus and the Rio Tinto Group. The latter contributed their HIsmelt technology to the final design of the installation, prompting the name HIsarna for the process ("HI" from HIsmelt and "sarna" from ''Isarna'', a Celtic word for iron).〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=HIsarna smelter technology )〕 ==History== The very first attempts at applying cyclone oven technology in the reduction of iron ore took place at Koninklijke Hoogovens in the 1960s. Cyclone technology had already been used successfully in different industrial, chemical processes and designers at Hoogovens thought it might be a strategy for improvement for their process. However, at the time they couldn't get it to work properly and the experiment was quickly abandoned.〔 The first serious revival came in 1986, when Hoogovens sought a method of producing steel without having to produce pig iron pellets. At that time the desire was mostly a cost-cutting measure in order to make the process cheaper in trying economic times. The trying times did not last however and the project was put on the back burner until the early 1990s. By the early 1990s the availability of cokes was becoming limited due to many of the major coking facilities in the West that produced cokes from coal were reaching the end of their economic life. Heavy environmental restrictions made it unattractive to build new facilities, so steel producers sought ways to reduce the need for cokes; Hoogovens started putting more effort into the cyclone technology as a solution to this problem and a test facility for the cyclone part proved capable of producing twenty tons of pig iron per hour. The rest of the process didn't work very well though, so when steel producers massively moved from coke bricks to powdered cokes injection and China started mass-producing cokes, the project lost momentum again. The steep drop in prices of commodities around 1999 caused the project to be halted.〔 In 2004 however, the European Union brought pressure on the steel industry to reduce its carbon footprint; the ULCOS consortium was founded as a result and in the period 2005-2007 the cyclone technology was selected as one of four high-potential technologies. A theoretical answer was found to the earlier problems of the post-cyclone part of the cyclone furnace and the Rio Tinto Group had industrial-scale experience with the required process, called HIsmelt. An agreement between them and ULCOS added the HIsmelt technology to the cyclone furnace and the result was the HIsarna process.〔 As of September 2010 the first pilot plant for HIsarna is under construction at Corus IJmuiden. If successful the pilot furnace will be capable of producing 65,000 tons of pig iron per year.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「HIsarna steelmaking process」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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