Brazil-based iron ore mining company Vale announced Wednesday that Tecnored Desenvolvimento Tecnologico SA, a Vale-owned company, has started up a pig iron demonstration plant that doesn't use the traditional blast furnace methods. Research on the pig iron plant in the Sao Paulo state in Brazil began over 35 years ago, and is the first of its kind. Tecnored worked in partnership with BNDES, Brazil's development bank, and Logos Teconocom on the project.
The new technology will be called Tecnored and allows for higher productivity, lower CO2 emissions, flexible raw material use and a 30 percent reduction in the cost of the steelmaking process. Tecnored allows pig iron to be produced from different grades and qualities of iron ore than before, including iron ore fines.
The new technology is only in its first stage of development, according to Vale, and will need to be studied further to ensure operational stability.
A news release from Vale indicates that the "new technology's secret lies in the use of cold pellets measuring 50 mm across, made up of lumps of fine particles of iron ore and a reducing product, such as different types of coal. The reducing agent removes oxygen from the iron ore, which is transformed into pig iron when heated in the furnace." The technology eliminates the need to use coke and sinterization facilities in the steel making process. Tecnored also only takes about 30 minutes, while in coke-fueled blast furnaces reduction can take as much as eight hours.