A direct smelting process

摘要

A direct smelting process and a fixed, ie non-rotatable, metallurgical vessel for producing metal from a metalliferous feed material is disclosed. The process is a molten bath-based process which includes injecting solid feed materials with a carrier gas into the molten bath via one or more downwardly extending lance/tuyere (11) and causing gas flow from the molten bath at a flow rate of at least 0.30 Nm<3>/s/m<2> at the interface between the metal layer (15) and the slag layer (16) of the molten bath (under quiescent conditions).