Speaker
ANTTI KEMPPAINEN
(Process Metallurgy Research Unit)
Description
The future of the low emission blast furnace (BF) ironmaking might result in significant
changes in the applied reductants. Today, majority of the Western Europe blast furnaces are
operated with pulverized coal injection, but alternative renewable reductants such as torrefied
biomass or charcoal could also be applied in BF injection. In addition, top gas recycling blast
furnace (TGR-BF) technology could provide partial solution to CO2 emission mitigation. Use
of bioreducers or top gas recycling will change the reducing gas composition in the BF shaft,
which has impacts on the iron burden reduction.
The objective of this research is to evaluate the effect of the low emission
reductants and technologies on the iron oxide reduction reactions in the blast furnace shaft. A
blast furnace model with comprehensive heat and mass balances is used in this research work
to compute the reducing gas atmosphere in BF shaft in different cases: 1) typical pulverized
coal injection as the reference case, 2) various bioreducer (torrefied biomass and charcoal)
injection cases and 3) TGR-BF case. The ferrousburden reduction under different conditions
is investigated by thermogravimetric experiments. Reducibility and swelling of the iron ore
pellets are investigated together with microstructural analysisfrom the reduction experiments.
The obtained results can be used to evaluate the impact of bioreducers and top gas recycling
on the blast furnace efficiency.
Author
ANTTI KEMPPAINEN
(Process Metallurgy Research Unit)
Co-authors
CHUAN WANG
(Swerea MEFOS, Process Integration Department)
ELSAYEDMOUSA
(Swerea MEFOS, Process Integration Department)
HANNU SUOPAJÄRVI
(Process Metallurgy Research Unit)
JUHO HAAPAKANGAS
(Process Metallurgy Research Unit)
TIMO FABRITIUS
(Process Metallurgy Research Unit)