Modelling of iron oxide reduction with hydrogen in a small fixed bed

The need to reduce the environmental impact of the steel industry necessitates the development of new production routes that drastically reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide. A potential solution is to change the reductant from carbon monoxide to hydrogen. In the development of such new ironmaking technologies, it is important to understand the iron oxide reduction kinetics under the novel conditions. In this work, a mathematical model of a small fixed-bed reactor was developed using the key assumptions of the Shrinking Core Model
to describe the kinetics of the reactive network and mass transport phenomena involved. The model was found to be robust and to perform in a consistent way when subjected to changes in the model parameters and conditions. It was demonstrated to qualitatively reproduce the results of reduction experiments in a small-scale laboratory reactor. Preliminary analysis indicated a promising potential to adapt the model quantitatively to experimental results.