ABSTRACT
Blast furnace ironmaking, the most widespread ironmaking technology available until today, has achieved near perfect maturity through the intensive developments that have taken place over the years around the globe. Industrially developed countries such as Japan, Germany, UK, and the United States have put enormous effort into this area, and even with a near asymptotic growth in blast furnace technology in the past, development efforts still continue. The latest example of this is the incorporation of artificial intelligence in the field of blast furnace ironmaking. Japanese blast furnaces, using probably the most advanced technology in the world, achieved a peak in total hot metal production around the time of the first oil crisis in 1973. Thus, in the analysis of the future of blast furnace ironmaking, the most sensitive area is cokemaking. Shrinking coking coal reserves and the pollution caused during coal carbonization have brought the entire cokemaking technology itself to a crossroads.
