COREX cast iron production process

Among the new ironmaking processes listed in the reference [5] , one of them, COREX, developed by the Austrian company VAI (Voest-Alpine Industrieanlagenbau) after lengthy pilot tests at Kehl (Germany), is the first to have reached the industrial stage, with the commissioning of a C 1000 unit, i.e. 1,000 nominal t of cast iron/day based on the use of lumps-class ores, at ISCOR's Pretoria plant in South Africa. In addition, the order for 5 C 2000 units [i.e. 2,000 nominal t of cast iron/day, based on the use of lumps-classified ores], the first of which came on stream in Korea at the end of 1995, obviously prompts us to examine the current status and future prospects of this process from three points of view:

• its metallurgical operation;

• its impact on the environment ;

• its economic outlook.