Dr Amit Kumar Singh

About Me

I am currently working in smelting reduction of iron oxide using hydrogen plasma at pilot scale (200 kg capacity) electric arc furnace at BAM Berlin, Germany. I have more than 6 years of research experience in ironmaking via direct reduction of iron ore. I enjoy problem solving and often find myself engaged working on new ideas, softwares and machines in my leisure time. I have designed and in-house developed a Thermo-Gravimetric Analyser (TGA) for my PhD work. With my educational background, research experience and access to resources, I am a suitable candidate and willing to work in Iron and Steel R&D. Please find my CV here. 

Postdoc Research at BAM Berlin, Germany

Working area: Waste utilization, Smelting reduction, Ti recovery, Pyrometallurgy, EAF steelmaking, Slag treatment, Green steel.

Bauxide residue contains 50-60% Fe2O3 and ~10% TiO2. Iron oxide from red mud can be smelted to Fe metal and separated from slag. The slag possibly be further treated to recover valuable Ti metal. We attempt to perform the work at pilot scale (200 kg capacity) electric arc furnace. 

Ph.D Research

Working area: Raw material preparation, Agglomeration, Direct reduction, Pyrometallurgy, Green steel.

Blast furnace – basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) steelmaking is dominant route of steel production worldwide. Depleting reserves of metallurgical coal and increasing CO2 emission puts iron and steel industry in difficult position. Iron and steel industry alone contributes to ~7% of anthropogenic carbon emission. It is about time to utilize alternatives to fossil-based fuels for steel production. There are two possible alternatives reductants as of now: i) Green hydrogen and ii) Renewable biomass. Green hydrogen faces formidable challenge in terms of production, storage and transportation at industrial scale. Biomass grown by short rotation forestry can act as an alternative to fossil fuels for short to mid-term. My PhD thesis title is "Substitution of coal by renewable reductants for green steelmaking". Aim of my Ph.D work is to produce green steel using select biomasses as a reductant.  The work consists of 4 major steps: i) Selection and characterization of fast growing hardwood biomasses suitable for the ironmaking application. ii) Production and characterization of produced charcoals. iii) Direct reduction of iron ore with produced charcoals as composite pellets. iv) Melting of the most suitable DRI to produce green steel. 

Publications

1. Amit Kumar Singh*, Sharvan Kumar, Biswajit Mishra, Raj Kumar Dishwar, Arup Kumar Mandal, Lakkoju Sankara Rao, and Om Prakash Sinha. "Direct reduction of fluxed iron ore pellets made from coarse iron ore particles." Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly (2022): 1-8.

2. Raj Kumar Dishwar*, Shavi Agrawal, Amit Kumar Singh, and Om Prakash Sinha. "Effect of Bath Environment and Charge Material on the Removal of Impurities from the Pig Iron Melt Using Laboratory Scale (2 kg) Electric Arc Furnace." Transactions of the Indian Institute of Metals 75, no. 3 (2022): 783-787.

3. Amit Kumar Singh*, Randhir Singh, and Om Prakash Sinha. "Characterization of charcoals produced from Acacia, Albizia and Leucaena for application in ironmaking." Fuel 320 (2022): 123991.

4. Biswajit Mishra*, Amit Kumar Singh, Lakkoju Sankara Rao and Girija Shankar Mahobia. “Reducibility and Kinetic studies of Pellets made from a novel Multimetallic Magnetite ore.” Transactions of the Indian Institute of Metals (2022), 1-10; https://doi.org/10.1007/s12666-022-02721-3.

5. Amit Kumar Singh, Biswajit Mishra, Sharvan Kumar, Om Prakash Sinha and Randhir Singh*. “Reduction behavior of iron ore pellets using hardwood biomasses as a reductant for sustainable ironmaking.” Biomass Conversion and Biorefinery (2022); https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-022-03407-y.

6. Amit Kumar Singh*, Randhir Singh, Om Prakash. “Reduction behavior and kinetics of iron ore-charcoal composite pellets for sustainable ironmaking.” Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B (2023), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11663-023-02729-0.

Skills

High temperature experiments, electric arc furnace melting and fabrication of thermo-gravimetric analyzer 

Experiment design

Characterization: XRD, SEM, FT-IR spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, Compressive testing, Hardness testing, Optical emission spectroscopy (OES)

Analysis

Research publication: Writing manuscript, correspondence and revisions 

Software: X'pert Highscore, Origin, ImageJ, Latex, MS Office