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

For raising sinter productivity and quality while reducing energy consumption and raw material cost, a new blending method has been created in Ansteel to optimise sintering blends. Traditionally the granulation of sintering blends in Ansteel has been adopted in disc pelletisers, which was recently found to be one of the causes to unstable blast furnace operation due to their low mixing efficiency. Based on above findings, a number of technical innovations at Sintering workshop 3 were conducted to replace its sixteen existing disc pelletisers with one drum granulator. This experience provided valuable data for optimization of sintering precess in Ansteel and even in China. In addition, the single lattice method is proposed to improve the particle-size distribution of coke breeze for sinter quality and lower fuel consumption. Considering the negative impact of high MgO content to blast furnace operations, low MgO sintering was, for the first time, proposed in Ansteel, which has significantly reduced the MgO content of blast furnace slag. Efforts have also been made in Ansteel to further optimize the technological parameters in the sintering process such as the changes of basicity and FeO content. Given the international trend on increasing the bed depth, Ansteel has successfully achieved a bed depth of 750 mm or more in case of 75% concentrates. Finally, the perspective of iron ore sintering is discussed in the paper.