8th International Congress on Science and Technology of Ironmaking - ICSTI 2018

Recently, steel industry confronts a high risk of deterioration of Iron ore property as well as mitigation of green-house gas and particulate in response to the environmental regulation. For particular, iron ore sintering in the integrated steelmaking process generates a high level of particulate due to use of fine ore. It is impossible to recover energy through by-product gas like BFG and COG in blast furnace and coke oven. In addition, the use of fine coke breeze and anthracite as fuel source for the sintering of iron ore particles is an environmental inferior process. The purpose of this study, therefore, is to figure out the optimal size of the fuel, which is only controllable parameter except that of the iron ore, in order to achieve the mitigation of environmental issue and improve productivity. First of all, the criteria on optimal particle size of the fuel guaranteeing both minimum amount of fine particles in exhaust gas and maximum productivity has been set up through a lab scale pot test. Secondly, optimized operation condition of rod mill was derived based on the criteria. Lastly, result of lab test was compared with that of plant test. As a result, the optimal fuel size is about 2.4±0.2mm that makes sure to improve the productivity without reducing strength. In order to achieve the purpose of study, it was confirmed that the rod mill must run at charging rate of 45t/h of the fuel with 150 rods. It was shown that the productivity improved by 2% and level of particulate in the exhaust gas reduced by 7% at the operating condition in long term plant test. Consequently, the results of this study might be thought to contribute to partially solving issues on reduction in productivity and increasing fine particulate due to increased fine iron ore.