Utilization of Coal in Iron Making

All advanced countries face the global environment issue to reduce drastically CO2 emission in the coming 50 years of this century. Iron making and power generation industries in Japan consume a huge amount of coal because of its reasonable cost and stable supply. Hence they are strongly requested to reduce CO2 emission. Iron making industry has developed a series of technologies to produce high quality steel products for saving the energy consumption over the world at the minimum energy consumption, applying raw materials and energy of low quality. Nevertheless they are asked to develop the technology to reduce further CO2 emission. In the present review, the authors summarize a series of the iron making technology developed recently and currently under development to meet future regulation of CO2 emission. The blast furnace, coke making oven and sintering of iron ore are major steps of iron making. Coal and coal derived products are heavily applied and higher efficiency of their use has been attempted. Industrial complex reconstruction, as well as technological development are continuously intended in the coming years.