Iron Production Using Ammonia as a Reductant

Project lead

Dr Mark Pownceby, mark.pownceby@csiro.au

Challenge

About 1.85 billion tonnes of steel is produced per year globally. Iron and steelmaking account for about 7% of global CO₂ emissions. One step in the process is the reduction of iron ores to iron using carbon (usually coal, coke, natural gas or syngas).

What we are doing

This project will look at the production of iron from iron ores using ammonia as reductant, instead of coke, to support low carbon ironmaking. The direct utilisation of ammonia in the reduction process offers a process shortcut, alleviating the need for a preliminary ammonia cracking step to produce hydrogen. The project aims to:

• explore the fundamental behaviour of ammonia as an iron ore reductant
• investigate the conditions required for ammonia direct reduction and parameters affecting the reactions through thermodynamic and kinetic studies by ammonia injection in laboratory scale shaft and/or fluidised bed reactors
• examine the reduction mechanisms of ammonia DRI and develop a model of process characteristics
• propose a suitable industrial-scale reactor design.

The project outputs will include new technologies to be developed and demonstrated at laboratory and pilot scales, scientific knowledge to be published in scholarly journals and science-based advice to government, business and industry for informed decision-making and strategic planning.

Project finish date

June 2025

HyResearch record

Iron Production Using Ammonia as a Reductant – HyResearch(csiro.au)