In December 2023, on the occasion of the restructuring of the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Metallurgy, Associate Director Professor Zuo Haibin was invited by Ms. Efi Fragkou of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) in the United Kingdom to attend the Special & Publication Awards ceremony held in London and receive the 2023 Williams Award presented by the association.

IOM3 is one of the most influential engineering academic organizations in the world, dedicated to promoting the development of materials science and engineering, geology, mining, and related technologies, and enjoys a high reputation internationally. The award-winning paper "Review of hydrogen-rich ironmaking technology in blast furnace" by Professor Zuo Haibin's research team was published in the well-known metallurgical journal "Ironmaking and Steelmaking" under IOM3, and was co-authored by doctoral student Chen Yanbiao under the guidance of corresponding author Professor Zuo Haibin.

Receiving the Williams Award

Article Introduction

The global warming promotes the steel industry to replace part of coke by injecting hydrogen-rich fuel into the blast furnace to reduce CO2 emissions and energy consumption. In this paper, the injected hydrogen-rich fuels and effects of hydrogen-rich smelting on burden reduction and property evolution were introduced, and the hot events related to hydrogen metallurgy were summarized. Increasing hydrogen content changes the thermodynamic and kinetic conditions of chemical reactions, changing the reduction behaviour of iron oxides and affecting the burden properties evolution and soft melting behaviour. Correspondingly the coke solution loss alters due to more H2O existence. In addition, the temperature and gas flow distribution are altered, affecting the iron oxide reduction rate and efficiency of blast furnace operation process. At present, some hydrogen metallurgy projects have been launched, making expected progress, which provides reference and thinking for the large-scale industrial application of hydrogen in blast furnace.

Awardee Introduction

Prof. Haibin ZUO, Associate Director of the SKLAM at USTB, is engaged in the research of low-carbon metallurgical process theory and the high-value utilization of low-quality coal resources. He is dedicated to developing novel ironmaking processes that couple top gas recycling with oxygen blast furnace, utilizing hydrogen-rich coal gas injection. He has also proposed a technical approach for the thermal extraction and graphitization transformation of low-quality coal to produce high-grade carbon materials. He has undertaken over 30 projects including the National Key R&D Program and the National Natural Science Foundation. Prof Zuo has been honored with various awards such as the international metallurgical "Willy Korf" Outstanding Youth Award and the first prize of the Metallurgical Science and Technology Award.