ECSC Project Airtight EAF

Development of operating conditions to improve chemical energy yield and performance of dedusting in airtight EAF

The indus­tri­al goal of this pro­ject is to make the EAF pro­cess, impro­ving the che­mi­cal ener­gy yield, more effi­ci­ent and more fle­xi­ble. The way to obtain this result is through opti­mi­sa­ti­on of the CO post-com­bus­ti­on ratio insi­de the fur­nace ope­ra­ted in air­tight conditions.

The increase of the air-tigh­tening of the fur­nace is advan­ta­ge­ous becau­se, with the reduc­tion of the amount of uncon­trol­led air that enters the fur­nace, it is pos­si­ble to have bet­ter con­trol of the CO post-com­bus­ti­on in some zones of the fur­nace that are useful for che­mi­cal ener­gy reco­very. Fur­ther­mo­re, air-tigh­tening is also useful for redu­cing dan­ge­rous and pol­lu­ting emissions.

Con­se­quent­ly, the acti­vi­ties car­ri­ed out in this rese­arch pro­ject were as follows:

  1. iden­ti­fi­ca­ti­on of the inter­ven­ti­on on the fur­nace to increase air-tightening;
  2. deve­lo­p­ment of ope­ra­ting pro­ce­du­res and of moni­to­ring devices sui­ta­ble to con­trol an air­tight EAF;
  3. expe­ri­men­tal tri­als and eva­lua­ti­on of the sub­se­quent data by appro­pria­te models;
  4. deve­lo­p­ment of models of the EAF and of dedus­ting sys­tems that can be used to con­trol the pro­cess and to cal­cu­la­te the data that is not measurable;
  5. deve­lo­p­ment of ope­ra­ting pro­ce­du­res that allow for an increase in the che­mi­cal ener­gy yield of the pro­cess and for con­trol of the exhaust gas volu­me and dust load.

The pro­ject pro­ved that air­tight ope­ra­ti­ons can lead to a decrease of the elec­tri­cal ener­gy demand if an accu­ra­te con­trol of the pro­cess is per­for­med. This con­trol is neces­sa­ry to opti­mi­se the coal and oxy­gen injec­tion, so as to com­pen­sa­te for the decrease of elec­tri­cal ener­gy with che­mi­cal ener­gy. In gene­ral, it is neces­sa­ry to link the opti­mum post­com­bus­ti­on ratio insi­de the fur­nace with the injec­tion appa­ra­tu­s­es, the ves­sel geo­me­try and the type of steel pro­du­ced. As a con­se­quence, this ratio must be work­ed out on a case-by-case basis.

The results obtai­ned pro­vi­de gui­de­lines for defi­ning the stra­tegy for post-com­bus­ti­on con­trol of the dif­fe­rent types of EAF tech­no­lo­gy investigated.

Final Report

Mar­ti­ni, U.; Kleimt, B.; Zis­ser, S.; Pfei­fer, H.; Kir­schen, M.; Veli­ko­ro­dov, V.; De Miran­da, U.; Kühn, R.; Deng, J.; Siig, J.; Wahl­ers, H. J.: Deve­lo­p­ment of ope­ra­ting con­di­ti­ons to impro­ve che­mi­cal ener­gy yield and per­for­mance of dedus­ting in air­tight EAF, EUR 22973, Office for Offi­ci­al Publi­ca­ti­ons of the Euro­pean Com­mu­ni­ties, (2007), Luxem­bourg, ISBN 978–92-79–06659‑7

Logo ECThe rese­arch lea­ding to the­se results has recei­ved fun­ding from the Euro­pean Com­mu­ni­ty under grant agree­ment n° 7210-PR/328.