Of course, ENERGIRON® plants can also use the conventional steam-natural gas reforming equipment, which has long characterized the process. Other reducing agents such as hydrogen, gases from coal, pet coke and similar fossil fuels gasifications, and coke oven gas, among others, are also potential sources of reducing gas, depending on the particular situation and availability.
This flexibility is made possible precisely because the ENERGIRON® ZR Process is independent of the reducing gas source, with no requirement to recirculate gases back to a reformer to complete the process chemistry loop. Several projects are currently under development that will use coke oven gas as the reducing gas source, and projects using gas from coal gasification technology are also underway.