Without a patent(s) tell us the Chinese don't already have this technology. A quick google search of "
continuous silicothermic process" brings me to this
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213956722000482 And I'll go to the conclusion as it's fairly technical
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4. Conclusion
In this study, the effects of argon flow rate, temperature, and reduction time on the yield of ferrosilicon reduction of calcined dolomite were studied by conducting experiments, and the argon entrainment process was explored by numerical simulation. The novel green process is carried out under recycled argon flowing without vacuum, which leads to the continuous magnesium production. And the reduction efficiency is greatly improved by enhanced convective heat transfer between pellets. The effect of reduction temperature, argon flow rate, and reduction time on the reduction of calcined dolomite by ferrosilicon was studied by orthogonal tests. With the increase in reduction temperature, the conversion significantly increased, and with the increase in reduction time, the conversion also significantly increased. With the increase in argon flow rate, the conversion first increased and then decreased, and the conversion reached the maximum when the argon flow rate was 3 L·min−1. Argon is recycled and preheated by using the residual heat of high temperature reducing slag. High-temperature argon flows between pellets, which not only changes the partial pressure of magnesium vapor on the surface of pellets to shift the equilibrium of chemical reaction, but also achieves enhanced convective heat transfer between pellets. A physical model of 10-layer pellet arrangement was established, and a numerical calculation model of chemical reaction, radiation, heat conduction, and convection heat transfer was established. The results show that high-temperature argon can effectively heat the pellets, promote rapid production reaction of pellets, reduce the reduction cycle, and improve the production efficiency. When the conversion is 80%, the production efficiency is increased by about 28.6%.