Mechanism of the Direct Reduction of Chromite Process as a Clean Ferrochrome Technology.

Direct reduction of chromite (DRC) is a promising alternative process for ferrochrome production with the potential to significantly reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions compared to conventional smelting. In DRC, chromium (Cr) and iron (Fe) from chromite ore incongruently dissolve into a molten salt, which facilitates mass transfer to a carbon (C) reductant where in situ metallization occurs. Consequently, ferrochrome is produced below the slag melting temperatures, achieving substantial energy savings relative to smelting.

Permeability of packs of polydisperse hard spheres.

The permeability of packs of spheres is important in a wide range of physical scenarios. Here, we create numerically generated random periodic domains of spheres that are polydisperse in size and use lattice-Boltzmann simulations of fluid flow to determine the permeability of the pore phase interstitial to the spheres. We control the polydispersivity of the sphere size distribution and the porosity across the full range from high porosity to a close packing of spheres.