IRON MAKING

Process route from ore to STEEL

Fe2O3 (hematite)/Fe3O4(magnetite)

Iron ore Hot metal Carbon steel

(~50-70% Fe) (~94% Fe) (~98-99% Fe)
Gangue:
P2O5
SiO2
MnO
etc. Oxidation/refini
Reduction in BF ng in steel
furnace
Introduction:

 B.F. process is the first step in Producing Steel From

Iron Oxide. Why??

 This Would remain so probably at least for next 20-30

years despite:
What is coking coal??

 Rapid depletion of coking coal reserves

 Enhanced adoption of alternate routes for iron

making for ultimate conversion to steel.
General flow diagram of Iron-steel making process
 Blast furnace process of IRON-MAKING

The B.F. works on a counter current principle

 Ascending hot gases meet descending solid charge

 The charge includes Iron bearing materials (ore, sinter, pellets), coke & flux
(Lime stone, Dolomite)
 The ascending gases cause reduction of Iron oxide in the Iron bearing
materials while progressively heating it.

The result is Production of:

 Liquid slag
 Liquid Metal
 B.F. Gas of considerable calorific value
  Top or throat, which is a cylinder

 Shaft or stack, which tapers outward from the top

 Belly, which is a cylinder

 Bosh, which tapers inward toward its bottom

 Hearth, at the bottom of the furnace, which is a

cylinder

 In approximately 75% of the total height of the

blast furnace (i.e. from top to bottom of stack),
reduction of iron oxide to Fe and decomposition
of limestone occur.
 Burden permeability is very important for the
smooth operation.
Principal reactions in the BF
Schematic of BF’s operation

Schematic cross-section of a blast furnace and auxiliary equipment

The blast furnace process has auxiliary equipment associated with it as shown in Fig
The blast furnace process can be briefly described as follows:

 Iron oxides, flux agents, and metallurgical coke are added to a skip car at the stock house.
 The skip car ascends through a skip bridge to the top of the blast furnace where it is emptied.
 A system of double bells/bell less charging system is used to charge the blast furnace to minimize the escape of
blast furnace gases and dust to the environment.
 As this charge descends through the blast furnace it meets highly reducing and hot gases.
 The transfer of energy from the hot gases to the solid charge, the reduction of the iron ore into hot
metal, and the formation of a slag phase (i.e., complex liquid oxide phase) take place.
 The hot and highly reducing gases ascending through the blast furnace come from the reaction of preheated air
with incandescent coke at the tuyere zone (near the base of the furnace).
 The liquid hot metal and slag are tapped from the blast furnace intermittently or continuously depending on the size of the
furnace.
 Hot metal is tapped into a torpedo car which is transported by rail to the hot metal pretreatment station, and the blast
furnace slag is tapped into a slag ladle which is transported by trucks to a slag pit.
 At the slag pit the slag is water cooled, processed, and sold as aggregate material.
 The reducing gases leaving the blast furnace are cleaned by passing them through electrostatic precipitators which capture
the dust.
 The cleaned blast furnace gases are used to preheat stoves and boilers within the steel plant. A stove is a heat exchange
vessel.
 Stoves absorb heat from the combustion of blast furnace gases with air and transfer this heat to the air blast that will be
injected into the blast furnace tuyeres.
 Working height is a distance between the
tuyere level and the stockline (more exactly
1 m below the rotating chute in vertical
position in the case of bell-less-type charging
system, or 1 m below the large bell in low
position in the case of bell-type charging
system, left).
 Corresponding furnace volume is working
volume.
 Inner or useful height is a distance from the
hot metal taphole level to the stockline.
 Total height is a distance from the hearth
bottom to the stockline.
 Above definitions are used in the EU
countries.
 Development of blast furnaces from 1860s to 1980s

 Blast furnaces have grown considerably in size during the twentieth century.
 In the early days of the twentieth century, blast furnaces had a hearth diameter of 4–5 m
and were producing around 100,000 THM per year, mostly from lump ore and coke.
 At the end of the twentieth century the biggest blast furnaces had between 14 and 15 m
in hearth diameter, and were producing 3–4 million tons of hot metal per year
Stock line: The distribution pattern at the top charge
or stock level in the furnace throat.
The materials or the stock or the burden should be
properly distributed for uniform distribution of the
ascending gas.
Zero stock line:
Horizontal plane formed by bottom of big bell when
closed. 6ft stock level for instance located 6ft below zero
stock line.
The advantages occurring from improved distribution control can be
summarized as follows:

•Increased productivity, decreased coke rate, improved furnace life

.
•Reduced refractory erosion
•Improved wind acceptance and reduced hanging as well as slips
•Improved efficiency of gas utilisation and its indirect reduction
•Lower silicon content in hot metal and consistency in the hot metal
quality
•Reduced tuyere losses and minimisation of scaffold formation
•Lower dust emission owing to uniform distribution of fines.
• As has been made clear that even the most efficient of the modern
blast furnace would produce an effluent gas containing
a significant proportion of CO which could not be used for
iron oxide reduction.
• The actual CO content may vary around 20-30% by volume. This
has a calorific value of nearly 900 kcal/m3.
• The quantity of gas produced depends upon the amount of fuel
burnt. For one tonne of coke burnt nearly 4000 m3 of effluent gas
may be produced.
• Hence a blast furnace requiring 1000 t of coke per day would
generate nearly 4 x 106 m3 of gas with a total energy content of
3600 x 106 kcal which is nearly equivalent to 500 t of coke.
•Two adjacent uptakes are joined together to form one single duct and the two such
ducts, thus formed, are connected to form only one duct which carries the gas
downwards into the dust catcher. The downcoming pipe or duct is called
downcomer.
•A bleeder valve is a safety device, which opens automatically or is opened, to release
extra pressure developed inside the furnace and thereby eliminate the danger of
explosion.
•The uptakes and the downcomers are steel pipes and are lined from inside with
firebricks. The sizes of the uptakes and downcomers and the angle of their joints are
such that gas flows out of the furnace smoothly without any hindrance.
•The uptakes should be located on the furnace-top periphery at those points which are
not directly vertically above the iron-notch, slag notch, blast main entrance to the
bustle pipe, etc. These are active points of the furnace and if the uptakes are located
right above these points it may cause uneven distribution of the gas through the
burden. The entire design should also ensure that minimum of dust is carried from the
furnace with the gases.
Hot blast stoves

 Essentially consists of a tall cylindrical structure comprising of a combustion chamber and heat regenerator unit of checker
bricks. The clean blast furnace gas is burnt in the combustion chamber and the hot products of combustion later heat
up the checker bricks. In this case the stove is said to be on 'on-gas' and is maintained on gas until the checker bricks are
heated to a certain temperature.
 Firing is stopped and cold blast is passed through checkers which impart the heat stored in them and there by produce
preheated blast. The stove is said to be 'on blast'. It can continue heating the blast till a certain minimum temperature of
the blast is obtainable. The stove is again put on gas and the cycle is repeated.
 The stove design and the number of stoves, employed should ensure a steady supply of preheated blast to the furnace. This
duty demands that the amount of heat generated by way of combustion of gas per unit time should be adequate to heat up
the required amount of blast to the required temperature per unit time, taking into account the usual efficiency of heat
transfer via checker system and the usual heat losses from the system.
 The thermal efficiency of the stove varies between 75-90%. The checker work cools more rapidly whereas it takes longer
time to heat it up. In practice a stove may be on gas for 2-4 hours and on blast for 1-2 hours. For an uninterrupted steady
supply of blast at specified temperature therefore a battery of at least three stoves is necessary. A two stove system is quite
unsatisfactory and hence three or four stove system is preferred.
 The checkerwork has to absorb maximum heat at faster rate while heating and should desorb heat equally rapidly to the
incoming cold blast. The larger the weight of bricks the more will be its heat storing capacity. The larger is the surface
area exposed to flues the faster is the heat exchange with gas. The bricks should have maximum weight with maximum
surface area of flues i.e. maximum openings to allow free passage of gases. It has been found that a ratio of weight of
bricks in kilogram to heating surface in square metres of about 5-6 in minimum. Below this structural difficulties
may arise.
 Wet scrubbers use a liquid to remove solid, liquid, or gaseous contaminants
from a gas stream. The scrubbing liquid performs this separation by
dissolving, trapping, or chemically reacting with the contaminant.

 Scrubber systems can be designed to remove entrained particulate materials

such as dust, fly ash, or metal oxides, or to remove gases, such as oxides of
sulfur (SOx), from a flue gas stream to meet air emission standards.

 In scrubbing particulate matter from gases, the principal concern is usually

removal of particles smaller than than 10 /on. Larger particles are relatively
easy to separate. The successful design and operation of wet scrubbers
depends on knowing the size, composition, and derivation of the particles to
be collected.