Viewpoint

History of the iron furnace using the physical-chemical blast furnace model

Retired ArcelorMittal Research Maizières Nouvion France

^* e-mail: nicolle.dom@wanadoo.fr

Received: 6 July 2022
Accepted: 21 October 2022

Abstract

The physical–chemical blast furnace model first built by Michard and Rist has proven to be a very efficient tool to predict and drive the present blast furnaces. It mostly describes the iron blast furnace as a counter current gas-solids dual heat and oxygen exchanger. The onset of coke gasification (orelse of iron oxide direct reduction), leads to a two-zones exchange model. This theory is used to look back at the operation of the earlier and smaller iron furnaces such as the early XIX^th century charcoal blast furnace or the much older low shaft furnaces. It shows the interest of using physical-chemical models to better understand the operation of past production tools.