Iron production in low-shaft furnace plants with Indian raw materials

CONVENTIONAL iron production in a blast-furnace is based
on lumpy or agglomerated burden or their optimum comb- ination employing strong and abrasion-resistant metallur- gical-coke. Smelting of iron in a low-shaft furnace
can, however, be undertaken with non-metallurgical coke
and lignite coke. The use of one component self-fluxing
briquetted burden or lumpy charge of sized iron ore fines
and fuel, has been investigated in the Low-Shaft Furnace
Pilot Plant of the National Metallurgical Laboratory.
India has more or less uniformly dispersed deposits of
good iron ore in the country. Coal reserves of India on
a conservative estimate are 'figured at 20 000 million
tonnes of which only 1 500 million tonnes are coking coal
suitable for conversion into strong metallurgical coal.
Deposits of metallurgical coal lie over a small geogra-phical area on the Bengal-Bihar border in India. As such,
iron smelting plants in different parts of India utilizing
regional iron ores and non-metallurgical fuels present
attractive possibilities thereby eliminating expensive and
over-congested rail transport of foundry grades of pig
iron which is subsidized by the State to maintain uniform
selling prices thereof in all parts of the country.