The steel enterprise’s survival and the sustainable development of iron and steel industry is facing severe challenges due to the shortage of resources and environmental pressure at new historical stage and the development of new ironmaking technology become inevitable. Rotary hearth furnace iron nugget technique is a kind of new nonBF ironmaking technology on coal base developed in the recent years, and has achieved commercial application to some extent. The iron and slag can be separated at fast speed and then the iron nugget of high grade can be got. It has advantages in energy consumption, production cost, environmental protection, raw materials flexibility and so on. The development process, basic characteristics and potential applications of the technology was reviewed in this paper. The significance of the technology in the field of iron and steel metallurgy and resource comprehensive utilization was pointed out according energy conservation, emissions reduction requirements and resources situation of iron and steel industry in our country. Finally, a brief introduction to the related fundamental research of the process was made.