The purpose of this method is to reduce carbon content from steel. This process is suitable for secondary steelmaking industry which recycling steel scrap that has variety of carbon content in their feedstock. This method aim to replace current conventional method that utilizing Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) to reduce carbon content of iron by blowing oxygen to make it react with carbon and forming CO.
In electrorefining, decarburization process happened in electrochemical cell that composed of inert electrode, slag and steel. During the process, current passing through the cell and made slag and steel melted. Oxygen ion from slag decompose and oxidize carbon on steel and to form CO. That decarburizing reaction is occurred in three steps as follow. (ads) means adsorbed intermediate
The total reaction from this cell is following this scheme
The SiO is come from the slag, based on the reaction above, beside producing CO gas, this method also producing pure silicon (depending on the slag). The benefit of this direct decarburization process is it does not produce CO but CO which is not considered as greenhouse gas.