Production of a reducing environment for metallurgy using nuclear energy

Abstract

One of the promising ways to reduce the energy consumption of metal production is the use of direct reduction technologies. In this paper the prospects of involving a nuclear energy source based on high temperature gas-cooled nuclear reactors (HTGR) in the production of reducing gases for metallurgy are considered. The description and main thermohydraulic features of a prospective methane converter with radial flow of a gaseous reaction mixture are given. The heat produced in HTGR is fed to the converter through a pipe system with a helium flow. The application of the methane converter with a radial gas flow scheme provides more compact construction and lower hydraulic loss in comparison with the traditional axial scheme. © 2014 WIT Press.