SBIR Phase II: A New Molten-Oxide Electrochemical Process for Producing Primary Iron and Ferrochromium

SBIR 第二阶段：用于生产原铁和铬铁的新型熔融氧化物电化学工艺

• 批准号: 1534664
• 负责人: Matthew Humbert
• 金额: $ 49.75万
• 依托单位: Boston Electrometallurgical Inc
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-09-15 至 2019-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1534664&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SBIR; Phase; II; New; Molten

The broader impact / commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research Phase II project is to advance the state of knowledge and industrial practice toward cleaner, cheaper, greener steel and stainless steel. The project will focus on the production of iron, part of a $1.1 trillion annual market worldwide, and ferrochromium, a $2.2 billion worldwide annual market. Molten oxide electrolysis with an inert anode has been demonstrated at the laboratory scale to produce low-carbon iron and ferroalloys, which are the basis of many high-performance steels. The current low-carbon metals sell at a premium. Published cost models show that both the capital and operating cost of MOE will be lower than competing technologies already in the marketplace. MOE can also reduce the environmental impact of producing these metals, even with today's electricity, and can produce even greater improvements with renewable energy. In summary, MOE will produce primary metals of higher quality at a lower cost and with lower environmental impact than current methods.The objective of this Phase II research project is to develop a cheaper, more energy efficient route to production of important metals including iron and ferrochromium. Economical separation of these metals from their ores by molten oxide electrolysis (MOE) is enabled by the recent invention of an inert anode material. The essential next step in understanding the behavior of the new inert anode in MOE is longer-duration testing than was possible in the laboratory cell. This test can only be achieved at a larger scale. The models and testing on surrogate systems in Phase I have shown the way to provide this long-duration testing in Phase II. These tests will point the way toward industrial-scale production of iron and ferrochromium by MOE.

这项小型企业创新研究阶段项目的更广泛的影响 /商业潜力是将知识和工业实践的状态推向清洁，更便宜，更绿色的钢和不锈钢。 该项目将重点介绍Iron的生产，这是全球每年1.1万亿美元的年度市场的一部分，以及Ferrochromium，这是全球22亿美元的年度市场。 在实验室尺度上已经证明了用惰性阳极的熔融氧化物电解，以产生低碳铁和铁合金，这是许多高性能钢的基础。 当前的低碳金属以溢价出售。 已发表的成本模型表明，MOE的资本和运营成本都将低于市场上的竞争技术。 萌还可以减少生产这些金属的环境影响，即使是当今的电力，也可以通过可再生能源产生更大的改善。 总而言之，与当前方法相比，MOE将以较低的成本生产质量更高的主要金属，并且具有较低的环境影响。这一II期研究项目的目的是开发一种更便宜，更节能的生产途径，以生产包括铁和铁龙在内的重要金属。这些金属通过熔融氧化物电解（MOE）从其矿石中的经济分离是通过最近发明的惰性阳极材料来实现的。了解MOE中新惰性阳极的行为的重要下一步是比实验室细胞中可能更长的持续测试。该测试只能在更大范围内实现。 I阶段中对替代系统的模型和测试显示了在II阶段提供这种长期测试的方法。 这些测试将指向MOE产生铁和铁龙的工业规模的道路。