EUROPEAN STEEL TECHNOLOGY AND APPLICATION DAYS 2017 - ESTAD 2017

Reducing agents are considered to be the major portion of hot metal production cost in blast furnace (BF) ironmaking. In addition, lower energy consumption, lower CO2 emission and waste recycling are strongly needed from both economic and environmental perspectives. Therefore, the iron and steel industry is prompted to sustainable develop “coke free, zero waste and green processes” for future implementation. In the present overview, attempts to explore the possible usage of unconventional reducing agents in BF ironmaking will be discussed. The paper aims to explore the feasible utilization of different carbon bearing materials as reductants in the BF ironmaking process. Different carbon bearing materials is considered, namely, waste plastic materials, biomass, and carbon rich iron and steel industry wastes. Devolatilization and gasification of carbon containing plastic and biomass materials are investigated by means of thermogravimetric analyzer coupled with an evolved gas analyzer. On the other hand, pretreatment of integrated steel in-plant fines prior to its utilization as a source of not only carbon but also iron is explored followed by a study of its reduction characteristics.