Zinc contaminated steelmaking by-products such as blast furnace (BF) dust and basic oxygen steelmaking (BOS) dust present a significant recycling challenge at integrated steelmaking plants. Rotary Hearth Furnaces (RHFs) provide an attractive route for recovery of Fe and Zn from these materials through carbothermal reduction of the oxides in the material to yield Direct Reduced Iron (DRI) and crude zinc oxide. The next generation of RHF processes such as ITmk3 and e-nugget produce pig iron nuggets from iron ore concentrates and coal, as iron and gangue separate in-situ without an additional melting unit. A computational study of the metal-slag system using FACTSAGE 7.3 suggests that production of pig iron nuggets of good quality (93.75 wt.% Fe, 4.3 wt.% C, 0.116 wt.% S, 0.66 wt.% Mn) can be produced from BF dust and BOS dust in a ratio of 37:63 with addition of 5.4 wt.% SiO₂ and 1.51 wt% MgO at 1450 °C. These computational results are in good agreement with experimental studies on similar material and, as such, suggest a practically feasible process.

受锌污染的炼钢副产品，例如高炉（BF）粉尘和碱性氧气炼钢（BOS）粉尘，对综合炼钢厂提出了重大的回收挑战。旋转式炉膛炉（RHF）提供了一种有吸引力的途径，可通过碳热还原材料中的氧化物以产生直接还原铁（DRI）和粗氧化锌，从这些材料中回收铁和锌。下一代RHF工艺，例如ITmk3和电子矿块，是由铁精矿和煤制得的生铁矿块，因为铁和脉石在原地分离无需额外的熔化装置。使用FACTSAGE 7.3对金属炉渣系统进行的计算研究表明，可以生产出高质量的生铁块（93.75重量％的铁，4.3重量％的碳，0.116重量％的S，0.66重量％的锰）由高炉粉尘和BOS粉尘以37:63的比例添加，并在1450°C下添加5.4 wt％的SiO ₂和1.51 wt％的MgO。这些计算结果与对相似材料的实验研究非常吻合，因此，表明了一个切实可行的过程。