?WHAT IS THE DRI
Sponge iron/DRI has gained great prominence in world as a substitute of steel scrap (partially) in steel making in electric arc furnace and in induction furnace. Direct Reduction is a metallurgical process of producing sponge iron from iron oxides (mainly from lump iron ores or pellets) directly in the solid phase. The product of this solid state route has a honeycomb structure with minute pores. Hence this product is most commonly known as sponge iron/direct reduced iron (DRI). This product is in three types of A (Hot-molded briquettes), B (Lumps, Pellets and cold-molded briquettes) and C (by-product fines), with moisture content up to 0.3 perc:The process offers the following benefits
- Using natural gas and agglomerated iron ore makes the process
- The packed reactor with the counter-current flow of reactants provides a high efficiency
- The process is highly flexible with regards to iron ore reducing gas sources
:DRI advantages
:The demand of sponge iron is increasing day by day because of following reasons
- Reduced availability of consistent quality steel scrap
- Fluctuation in steel scrap price
- Consistent quality of sponge iron with absence of tramp like copper, tin, arsenic, chromium, nickel, lead and etc
- Relatively firm sponge iron price
- High iron content and high degree of metallization Minimum dust generation during material handling
- Known sponge iron composition leads to accurate end point steel making
- Viable and sponge iron manufacturing due to its captive generation
- Use of higher percentage of sponge iron in the charge mix of induction furnace (IF) and electric Arc Furnace steel making