Presentation title: Progress of blast furnace ironmaking technology in China

Zhengjian Liu, professor and doctoral supervisor of University of Science and Technology Beijing, is the secretary general of the Ironmaking Branch of the Chinese Society for Metals, member of the Foreign Exchange Working Committee of the 11th Council of the Chinese Society of Metals, was selected to the National Young Talent Program, and was granted the IJMMM’s “Dingxin Young Scientist Award”.

He presided 3 General Programs and 1 Young Scientist Fund of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, participated in 1 project National Key Research and Development Program of China as the person in charge of USTB, 2 projects of the National Science and Technology Support Program of the “11th Five-Year Plan”, 1 project of the National Science and Technology Support Program of the “12th Five-Year Plan” period, 6 international cooperation projects, and nearly 100 enterprise cooperation projects.

Presentation title: Decarbonizing ironmaking process and technologies at Hyundai Steel

Yong-hee Kim obtained Ph.D in Department of Metallurgical Engineering at Seoul National University in 2000, and has been working at Hyundai Steel Co. and conducting research in various fields.

Research has been conducted on various metallurgical phenomena in the iron and steelmaking process, such as a study on the dross behavior in a molten zinc pot and solidification in a continuous casting mold based on numerical analysis, a study on the metallurgical behavior and inclusions effect from steelmaking to continuous casting molds, and a study on the effect of iron ore in the ironmaking process and the operation of high-efficiency blast furnaces.

As the demand for the decarbonized steel process grows, research is continuing to produce high-quality automobile steel sheet while reducing carbon emissions in the iron and steelmaking process.

Presentation title: to be determined

Dr Liming Lu is currently a Chief Scientist leading CSIRO R&D in iron ore agglomeration and high temperature behaviour of iron ore agglomerates in blast furnace and other alternative ironmaking processes. Liming was featured in the World’s Top 2% Scientists List published by Stanford University in 2020 and ranked at 43 in the field of mining and metallurgy. Liming is also the recipient of CSIRO Mineral Resources Life Achievement Award, ISIJ Sawamura Award and AIST Josef S Kapitan Award. Liming is the editor of the Elsevier book entitled “Iron ore – mineralogy, processing and environmental sustainability”. He has published in a broad area from material characterisation to mineral processing to pyrometallurgy including 19 book chapters and more than 160 papers. Liming is an international technical expert of ISO Technical Committee TC102/SC3, which is reviewing and developing international standards for the physical testing of iron ore. In addition, Liming has served as an Editorial Board member for I&SM and Processes, Advisory Board member for ISIJ International, and Review Board member for Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A and Minerals.

Presentation title: CO2 Reduction Technology in the Blast Furnace Process for Achieving CN

Dr. Akinori Murao is a senior researcher of Ironmaking Research Dept., Steel Research Laboratory, JFE Steel Corporation in Japan. He graduated from master’s program, Department of Materials Process Engineering, Nagoya University in 1999 and he joined JFE Steel in the same year. He was in charge of the development related to the blast furnace operation for 18 years, and related to rotary hearth furnace for 3 years. He obtained his PhD in Department of Chemical Engineering at the Tohoku University in 2018. His PhD thesis title is “Development of High Efficiency and Low-Carbon Operation Technology of Blast Furnace”. Then, he worked at the Research Planning and Administration Department for three years, and helped develop a company-wide policy for carbon neutrality from 2020. After engaging in Research Planning and Administration Department, he is a senior researcher of Ironmaking Research Dept. as a group leader of blast furnace, raw material, sintering and pellet process from April 2023.

Presentation title: Effect of hydrogen-reduced microstructure on softening behavior of iron ore agglomerates under high temperature loading conditions

Worked at Kyushu University as an Assistant Professor from 2006 to 2012. At the same time, stayed at RWTH Aachen University as a Postdoctoral Researcher from 2010 to 2011. Work at the Kyushu university as an Associate Professor from 2012 to 2021. Work at the Kyushu university as a Professor from 2021 to present. Earned a Master of Engineering in 2003 and a Doctor of Engineering in 2006 at department of Metallurgy in Tohoku University. Research fields are kinetics analysis and thermodynamics of Iron and steelmaking Processes.

Presentation title: Characteristics of bio-carbon and its utilization in ironmaking process

Dr. Sanghan Son is currently a senior researcher at Low Carbon Iron and Steel Making R&D Center, POSCO and is conducting research on raw materials, sintering, and ironmaking. He received a B.S degree from Hanyang University, Korea in 1997 and a Ph.D in Metallurgy Engineering from the University of Tokyo, Japan in 2003. He completed a post-doctorate at Tohoku University, Japan in 2006 and joined POSCO in 2007. He participated in planning a carbon-neutral technology development strategy for the Korean steel industry in 2021-2022 and is currently conducting research on POSCO's low-carbon ironmaking technology.

Presentation title: Influence of MgO in slag and slag basicity  CaO/SiO₂ and (CaO+MgO)/SiO₂on NLMK BF6 and BF7 operation

In 2003 graduated from Lipetsk State Technical University, engineer of metallurgy.

Since 2003 BF technology specialist in NLMK technical directorate, since 2023 Main expert of NLMK Blast furnace shop#2 Process stabilization department.