Recent Developments

New ironmaking technique : Work has been continued on the development of a reactor in which coal can be gasified with oxygen to provide a suitable atmosphere and temp-erature for the reduction of iron ore and the production of molten metal. A burner has been developed for this purpose and considerable progress has been made. The
difficulties met in accurately feeding fine fuel and
ore have been largely overcome and the reactor has oper-ated steadily. Molten metal has been tapped, but although the fuel requirements are considerably less than they
were a year ago they are still high.To improve fuel effi-ciency, more work is being done to reduce the heat losses from the unit by improving the design and operation and by increasing the throughput. A low pressure oxygen plant has been installed to provide for increasing the rating of
the unit.