Possibility for Iron Production Using High-Power Millimeter Waves

Microwave (MW) technology is a promising alternative to conventional heating. It also resides in the new domain of materials science, namely, microscopic and strong thermal nonequilibrium systems. The application of MWs in the iron industry may be characterized by a high potential for an essential reduction of carbon dioxide emission. A series of experiments has been conducted to prove the effectiveness of rapid and high-purity refinement under an oxygen-containing environment by means of MW application, and achieved highly positive results. That has led to feasibility studies using a compact 30-GHz gyrotron system at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. Potential MW effects have been investigated. High-quality pig iron has been made from powder samples of mixed magnetite and carbon by 30-GHz millimeter-wave heating. This paper discusses the experimental results obtained recently and the estimated MW power for the iron production.