Sir Henry Bessemer Lecture
Add to calCutlers Hall, Sheffield
Prior to the SMEA Dinner on the 3rd Nov, the SMEA will be hosting the prestigious Sir Henry Bessemer Lecture given by this year’s recipient of the IOM3 Bessemer Gold Medal Professor Geoffrey Brooks of Swinburne University ofTechnology in Melbourne, Australia. He is an internationally renowned expert on Oxygen steelmaking and much of his current work is focussed on the decarbonisation of the BOS steelmaking route. The title of his lecture is “The future of Bessemers’ Dream” and a precis is below.
Bessemer’s great innovation from 170 years ago took steel from kilogram to tonnage scale production rates in one giant leap. Now, the push is towards decarbonisation, as the international steel industry contributes between 7 to 10% of the human made CO 2 and the industry is under significant pressure to decarbonise as part of a general shift towards renewables. The two dominant steelmaking processes are currently the Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) and the Electric Arc Furnace (EAF).
Professor Brooks will examine key issues facing these technologies, in particular;
(i) the need tomake the BOF a more versatile reactor in terms of feed materials,
(ii) re-thinking the EAF to deal with Hydrogen DRI,
(iii) and the introduction of Melter/Smelting furnaces to remove gangue from Hydrogen DRI processes.
Can we be as innovative as Bessemer in meeting these challenges?
The lecture is aimed at a general audience as well as technical specialists. It is free to attend and open to all. After the lecture at 19-00 the SMEA will present the annual awards to gifted students from Sheffield Hallam University and The University of Sheffield.
People are free to attend the lecture, dinner or both.
