Guest Editors

Prof. Dr. Jianliang Zhang

School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China

E-mail: jl.zhang@ustb.edu.cn

Prof. Dr. Johannes Schenk

Department Metallurgy, Montanuniversitaet Leoben, 8700 Leoben, Austria

E-mail: johannes.schenk@unileoben.ac.at

Prof. Dr. Zhengjian Liu

School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China

E-mail: liuzhengjian@126.com

Prof. Dr. Kejiang Li

School of Metallurgical and Ecological Engineering, University of Science and Technology Beijing, Beijing 100083, China

E-mail: likejiang@ustb.edu.cn

Hydrogen metallurgy mainly indicates the metallurgical process in which hydrogen is used as reductant to reduce iron oxides. It has been validated that hydrogen can replace carbon in various ironmaking processes including blast furnace ironmaking, shaft furnace ironmaking, smelting and reduction process, etc.. With the main off-gas being H₂O, the replacement of carbon using hydrogen possesses the advantage of environmental protection with a significant decrease of CO₂ emission. With a much smaller molecular size compared with CO, hydrogen gas can easily penetrate into iron ore, achieving a rapid reduction process. In the past, a lot of researches have been conducted regarding the thermodynamics and kinetics of hydrogen reduction, while the understanding about many fundamental behavior and mechanisms of hydrogen in various ironmaking processes are far from complete.

This Special Issue emphasizes, but is not limited to the following: (1) the reduction mechanism of iron ore using hydrogen or hydrogen-based reducing gases; (2) the utilization and behavior of hydrogen in traditional ironmaking process; (3) the utilization and behavior of hydrogen in novel ironmaking process; (4) comparative study on the difference between hydrogen-based ironmaking process and traditional carbon-based ironmaking process; (5) any other fundamental issues related with the utilization of hydrogen in the extractive metallurgical process.