Two years ago, when the R&D team of Aerospace Long March Chemical Engineering Co., Ltd. decided to shift their focus from rocket launch towers to steel blast furnaces, many people were filled with excitement: can the technology of building rockets really master steelmaking?

This question has been completely dispelled with the recent release of a set of impressive data. At the experimental site located in Hebei, the aerospace gas based vertical furnace independently developed by the Aerospace Engineering Company of the Rocket Academy has successfully completed the first round of full process testing certification, and high-quality direct reduced iron products continue to be produced offline. This is not only a technological breakthrough, but also a precise landing of aerospace system engineering experience on the main battlefield of the national economy.

Breaking the dependence on coke ovens

For a long time, China's steel production has been highly dependent on the traditional process of "blast furnace+coke". Coke is both a heat source and a reducing agent, but it is also a source of carbon emissions and pollution. Faced with the "dual carbon" goal, it is urgent to find alternative processes.

Gas based vertical furnace technology is regarded as the key to breaking the deadlock. It abandoned coke and instead used hydrogen and carbon monoxide as reducing agents. This process has fast reaction speed, low energy consumption, and can significantly reduce the emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides. However, previously, the core equipment in this field in China relied heavily on imports and had poor adaptability to gas sources. The breakthrough in aerospace engineering means that domestic equipment has achieved a transformation from following to running parallel or even leading on this track.

Cross border technological breakthroughs

The advantage of aerospace engineering lies in its confidence. Based on years of experience in system engineering and equipment development in the field of aerospace gasification, the R&D team has built a unique process system.

After the project was officially approved in December 2024, the team started the acceleration mode. Without mature reference precedents, they completed the entire process from design to core equipment development in less than a year. The pilot construction will start in March 2025, and the core equipment will be completed in July. Faced with the complex problem of controlling process parameters, R&D personnel have introduced strict quality control standards in the aerospace field into metallurgical equipment to ensure the stable operation of the system.

Validate process limits

The scale of this pilot plant is an annual production of 50000 tons of DRI. During the experiment, the team conducted comprehensive tests on different hydrogen to carbon ratios of working conditions. The results show that the device can stably produce high-quality products under various conditions. It is particularly worth mentioning that the operating pressure index of the vertical furnace exceeds the publicly available level of similar technologies at home and abroad, proving its excellent performance under high-pressure operation.

Not only that, the aerospace gas based vertical furnace also demonstrates strong inclusiveness. It can widely couple various gas sources such as coal gasification, biomass gasification, and even garbage melting gasification. This flexibility enables the technology to not only serve large steel mills, but also assist chemical parks in achieving resource recycling, providing more possibilities for the green transformation of the steel industry.

At present, the R&D team is intensifying the sorting of experimental data and deepening the exploration of technical efficiency. Next, they will promote the industrial demonstration and application of technology, allowing the aerospace power to continuously empower the low-carbon transformation of the metallurgical industry.Editor/Yang Meiling