摘要 |
Iron ore, coal and oxygen are fed to a reactor 4 to produce iron and a fuel gas. The fuel gas leaves the reactor 4 at a temperature of at least 200 DEG C and is passed through a hot filtration apparatus 6. The resulting hot, filtered gas then passes through a heat exchanger 8. A heat exchange fluid, preferably a stream of nitrogen at above ambient pressure passes through the heat exchanger 8 countercurrently to the hot filtered as stream. The heat exchange fluid is thereby heated. The hot heat exchange fluid stream is then expanded with the performance of external work in an expansion turbine 10, for example it may be used in the generation of electrical power. The hot, filtered, fuel gas may be sent for power recovery downstream of the heat exchanger 8 or may be separated into its constituent components. If the heat exchange fluid is nitrogen it may be separated from air in the same plant 2 that is used to feed the reactor 4 with oxygen. <IMAGE> |