7TH EUROPEAN COKE AND IRONMAKING CONGRESS - ECIC 2016

In the past 30 years the development of pulverized coal injection technology has been driven by the cost optimization for blast furnace operation. Today blast furnace operators are facing one more very important topic for their hot metal production: CO2 emissions. By further improvement of the injection technologies even in small steps Küttners efforts in this field are significant. An optimized coal injection system can reduce the CO2 emissions and can contribute to save expenditure for CO2 certificates which will more and more put blast furnace operation under pressure in particular in Europe and Germany. Küttner’s long lasting strategy in the field of injection technology was and is supporting blast furnace operators to sustainably reduce the coke rate by maximizing the amount of injected pulverized coal for the production of hot metal. The report shows what has already been achieved by implementation of various technology steps like dense phase transportion, the reduction of transport and injection gas to a minimum, the OxyCoal technology, preheating of pulverized coal, the use of oxygen in the wind enrichment and the combined injection of pulverized coal and gas. Last but not least, economical aspects by using PCI with regard to the presented optimization steps will be discussed.