<p>Decarbonizing the steel production chain is essential for advancing toward more sustainable industrial practices. In ironmaking, agglomeration processes are significant sources of CO₂ emissions owing to their intensive use of fossil fuels. This study investigates the introduction of cold-agglomerated iron ore briquettes into the blast furnace as a low-emission alternative burden. However, a central aspect is the behavior of alkalis, which can form compounds (e.g., carbonates, cyanides, silicates) that may deteriorate the physical and metallurgical properties of the burden, degrade coke, and lead to solid build-ups on the furnace walls, reducing permeability and operational efficiency. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tool was used, and a new alkali recirculation implementation was integrated into the existing model, allowing analysis of mass transport, heat transfer, and chemical reactions associated with alkali cycling. The model was validated against reference operating conditions and showed good agreement, particularly regarding slag alkali concentrations. The simulation results indicated that the new briquetted burden does not significantly increase the formation of harmful alkali compounds in critical zones of the reactor. The study concludes that the use of cold-agglomerated briquettes is technically feasible and could contribute to reducing CO₂ emissions without compromising blast furnace operational stability. Measured and model predictions indicated that approximately 95% of the input alkali is eliminated by the slag phase for the four cases of industrial trials.</p> Graphical Abstract <p></p>