Finland-headed global aggregates, minerals, and metals process technology supplier Metso Oyj has announced that it is expanding its testing capabilities by investing EUR 8 million in a state-of-the-art Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) Smelting Furnace pilot facility. The pilot plant is being built in Pori, Finland, where Metso has one of its major R&D Centers.
Since DRI properties vary based on the iron ore body and direct reduction technology used, piloting tests before industrial scale investment are very useful to validate simulation data and verify the feasibility of a customer project.
The new facility will allow customer-specific pilot-scale testing to demonstrate the applicability and results of industrial-scale smelting with Metso’s “Outotec DRI Smelting Furnace” technology.
Currently, the iron and steel industry accounts for about 8 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions. With the tightening of environmental regulations, the industry is looking for innovations to reduce its carbon footprint. There has been a lot of interest in the recently launched Metso’s Outotec DRI Smelting Furnace. It substitutes traditional blast furnaces used in iron and steel making, and enables a significant reduction of emissions when combined with a direct reduction plant, noted Jyrki Makkonen, VP of Smelting at Metso.
Breakthrough technology
Launched in 2022, the new high-capacity Outotec DRI Smelting Furnace is seen by Metso as one of its breakthrough technologies and a major Planet Positive solution to support decarbonizing the iron and steel industry.
Combined with a direct reduction plant, Metso’s Outotec DRI Smelting Furnace substitutes traditional blast furnaces in the production of hot metal, making it an optimal solution for primary steel producers aiming for a significant reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions with minimal changes to the rest of the steel plant.
The furnace can be integrated with Metso’s hydrogen-based “Circored” process or other direct reduction processes.
The investment into the DRI Smelting Furnace pilot facility supports the rapidly increasing customer demand for reliable testing when planning a transition to emissions-free smelting. With the pilot facility, we can reliably test various types of customer materials for industrial scale-up. The construction of this unique facility has started, and we expect to run the first tests and campaigns in the latter part of 2024. Currently, we are serving our customers with smaller-scale laboratory tests, said Mari Lindgren, Director of Smelting R&D at Metso.
