ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,286,679, issued on April 29, was assigned to ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe AG (Duisburg, Germany).
"Method for the direct reduction of iron ore" was invented by Matthias Weinberg (Krefeld, Germany) and Daniel Schubert (Duisburg, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "The invention relates to a process for direct reduction of iron ore to afford direct reduced iron, wherein the iron ore sequentially passes through a reduction zone for reducing the iron ore to direct reduced iron and a cooling zone for cooling the direct reduced iron, wherein in the reduction zone the iron ore is subjected to a flow of a reduction gas and wherein in the cooling ...