[rmuru]

I am working as a R&D Engineer for some iron & steel factory and there are blast furnaces here, i need some suggestions about which ways should i use or research or what can i do for blast furnaces on this industry as a chemist?
Which researches should i do?
Which developements should i work on?

[rolnor]

It feels like this type of chemistry is more inorganic, not organic?
One fun thing I made as teenager was heating a mixture of magnesium metal and sand in a closed porcelain crucible, I used a propane-torch. After cooling, the crucible was opened and in a dark room I poored some of the residue into a beaker with water, some small flames rised from the water. The formed magnesium silicide hydrolyzed to SiH4 and this spontaneously catch fire in air.

[Enthalpy]

One useful (and ambitious) objective: reduce the consumption of coal and the emission of CO₂.
https://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=100275.msg351914#msg351914
Could sunlight bring the ore to FeO? Or even to Fe via a cycle using Zn/ZnO or similar?

You might try to extract Fe from red mud, the waste of aluminium production
https://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=80950.0
Red mud contains as a example 40% of Fe₂O₃
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mud
that's not brilliant, but the material is already mined and available at negative price for being a pollutant. I vaguely suppose that a blast furnace can do it with little modifications. Once Fe₂O₃ is removed, TiO₂ should make more than 10% of the rest, comparable with the best titanium ores
https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1802/t/pp1802t.pdf

At power plants in Europe, fumes are caught efficiently. Could you adapt similar means to catch the fumes emitted by blast furnaces?

Use the slag to absorb CO₂ that would otherwise end in the atmosphere? Concentrated CO₂ is available for instance at lime factories, often near to blast furnaces, ready to be caught rather than emitted.

Check how to run a blast furnace with polymetallic nodules, and how to adapt it? They got fashionable again recently (maybe the fashion has already gone)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manganese_nodule
their value seems to result from manganese rather than iron. Ferromanganese is made in blast furnaces from mixed manganese and iron ores, so the nodules, which are already mixes, could be a direct feed.

[rmuru]

One useful (and ambitious) objective: reduce the consumption of coal and the emission of CO₂.
https://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=100275.msg351914#msg351914
Could sunlight bring the ore to FeO? Or even to Fe via a cycle using Zn/ZnO or similar?

You might try to extract Fe from red mud, the waste of aluminium production
https://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=80950.0
Red mud contains as a example 40% of Fe₂O₃
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_mud
that's not brilliant, but the material is already mined and available at negative price for being a pollutant. I vaguely suppose that a blast furnace can do it with little modifications. Once Fe₂O₃ is removed, TiO₂ should make more than 10% of the rest, comparable with the best titanium ores
https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/1802/t/pp1802t.pdf

Should i start research these via sciencedirect com and try to understand the published publications about them?

[Enthalpy]

Should i start research these via sciencedirect com and try to understand the published publications about them?

Huh, I dunno. Checking what the other Sapiens have already done isn't a bad idea, sure.

One more proposal:

Processing pig iron to steel and to parts produces more slag, for instance when forging. This slag is a pollutant there but would be first-class feed for a blast furnace.

So do the amounts, the transport cost, the collection effort make economic sense, if including the pollution? Is the conversion to pig iron technically possible, for instance due to alloying elements? Or is it already done?

[rmuru]

Should i start research these via sciencedirect com and try to understand the published publications about them?

Huh, I dunno. Checking what the other Sapiens have already done isn't a bad idea, sure.

One more proposal:

Processing pig iron to steel and to parts produces more slag, for instance when forging. This slag is a pollutant there but would be first-class feed for a blast furnace.

So do the amounts, the transport cost, the collection effort make economic sense, if including the pollution? Is the conversion to pig iron technically possible, for instance due to alloying elements? Or is it already done?

Okay.I'll take your word and research your proposals.
One more question.
What about preparing a phd thesis for these? Can you show me example of publications about that so i can take a look?

[Enthalpy]

I have nearly no access to research papers, being presently an armchair inventor at home. Which also explains why I rarely make literature reviews.

So if you're interested in the ideas I suggested, fine! But check whether they're banal, or impossible, or useless. A thesis director would be precious for that.