UK-based plantmaker Primetals Technologies has announced that it has signed a cooperation agreement with South Korean steelmaker POSCO to build a HyREX demonstration plant at POSCO’s premises in Pohang, South Korea. The plant is aimed at testing and verifying certain details of the production process while determining the most cost-effective process parameters.
The HyREX industrial demonstration plant will consist of an ore dryer, fluidized-bed reactors arranged in a cascade, a hot direct reduction iron transport system, an electric smelting furnace, a dedusting system, metal tapping, and slag granulation as key equipment. HyREX, which is aimed to replace blast furnace-based ironmaking, can remove the environmentally intensive sintering process and the need for a coke plant.
HyREX technology, which uses hydrogen as a reduction agent and is suitable for more than 50 percent of globally available iron ore grades, will allow steel producers to replace carbon-intensive blast furnaces in line with the global steel industry’s carbon emission reduction target. In addition, in July this year, POSCO launched a pilot steel plant based on HyREX technology at its Pohang complex and plans to start the construction of a full-scale HyREX plant in the first quarter of next year, with completion scheduled by 2027, as SteelOrbis previously reported.