CONTENTS

1 Blast furnace
2 Parts of blast furnace
3 Input – Output Model
4 The main chemical reaction producing the molten iron
5 Design features and furnace parameter
6 Basic Oxygen Furnace
7 Working of blast furnace
1 Blast Furnace
Blast Furnace is the most important part of an integrated steel
plant. It is considered as the heart of an ISP. The objective of
Blast Furnace is to take the raw material from RMHP, coke
from Coke Ovens and Sinter from Sinter Plant and convert it
into pig iron or ”Hot Metal”.
Coke serves as the heat source and reducing agent while
Limestone and Dolomite are used as flux, which
combines with gangue to produce slag. A Blast Furnace
is so called because it uses air blast as oxygen source for
the process.
HOT AIR BLAST

BURDEN CHARGE
Blast furnace is a counter current reactor.
Process in blast furnace is called counter current reaction.
BF is a counter current heat and mass exchanger, in which
solid raw materials are charged from the top of the
furnace and hot blast, is sent through the bottom via
tuyeres.The heat and is transferred from the gas to the
burden and oxygen from the burden to the gas. Gas
ascends up the furnace while burden and coke descend
down through the furnace. The counter current nature of
the reactions makes the overall process an extremely
efficient one in reducing atmosphere. The real growth of
blast furnace technology came with the production of high
strength coke which enabled the construction of large size
blast furnaces.
2 Parts of Blast Furnace
1. Hot blast from Cowper stoves
2. Melting zone
3. Reduction zone of ferrous oxide
4. Reduction zone of ferric oxide
5. Pre-heating zone
6. Feed of ore, limestone and coke
7. Exhaust gases
8. Column of ore, coke and limestone
9. Removal of slag
10. Tapping of molten pig iron
11. Collection of waste gase
Figure 2 (a) shows a schematic diagram of blast furnace
interior. In order to operate a blast furnace stably and
economically, it is important to form an inverse-V shaped,
cohesive zone in the high
temperature region, by locally intensifying the gas flow at
the center of the furnace.
To achieve this, the ore to coke weight ratio (O/C) has to
be maintained lower locally at the center. This is done by
adjusting the weight ratio of ore and coke around the
radius at the time of charging both the materials from the
top of the furnace.
In the conventional method, however, it was difficult to
maintain the O/C at the center low enough due to the
effect of charging, such as the flow-in of coke and
changes in ore sizes. Increased ore volume at the center
lowers the gas permeability and reduces center gas flow
making the cohesive zone W shaped. This leads to
increase of heat-loss at the furnace wall and disturbs the
descending of burden materials, deteriorating the furnace
wall. Many furnaces have mechanisms for adjusting the
charging positions of materials to control O/C
distribution. The mechanisms include armor plates placed
around the periphery of the furnace throat, and rotating
chutes with angle adjusting capabilities, however, the area
of their control is limited to the periphery. There has been
a need for a method of controlling the gas flow at the
center of furnaces in an easy and reliable manner.

Another issue is that lower portions of blast furnaces

contain "deadman" coke of which permeabilities for gas
and liquid affect the performance and life time of the
furnaces significantly. Especially, the deadman coke
determines the flow of gas and hot metal in the lower
portion of a blast furnace, and deterioration of the gas
permeability increases gas flow along the furnace wall,
resulting in W-shaped cohesion and poor furnace
conditions.
At the furnace bottom, where molten pig iron is held,
low liquid permeability at the center of deadman coke
develops annular flow of the melt at the time of discharge,
causing erosion of the refractory wall and shortening the
life of the furnace body. It is desirable to improve the
liquid permeability of the deadman coke to lengthen the
life of the furnace, however, this has been considered to
be difficult since the deadman coke is at the bottom of the
furnace and is heated higher than 1,500 ℃.
Figure 2 (b) is a schematic showing control of blast
furnace processing by center coke charging. The coke
layer has a gas-flow resistance smaller by a factor of 10
compared to that of the ore layer and has a high gas-
permeability. When a larger amount of coke exists,
relatively, at the center of a blast furnace, the high
temperature gas, consisting mainly of CO generated at
the tuyeres, concentrates at the furnace center and
distributes through the coke layer of the cohesive zone
to the periphery. The coke in the furnace, during its
descending process, is subject to the carbon solution
loss reaction (CO2+C → CO) by CO2 gas generated by
reductive reaction of the ores. If the coke undergoes
excessive amount of this reaction, it becomes porous,
weak in strength and generates a large amount of
powder. Especially when the deadman coke goes
through this reaction, it bring a large amount of powder
into the deadman, deteriorating its gas and liquid
permeability.
Center coke charging, on the other hand, reduces ore
volume and CO2 generation in the center, suppresses
the carbon solution loss reaction and makes the
deadman coke healthy with less powder. This improves
the liquid permeability of the deadman and allows the
melt to flow through the center of the furnace bottom at
the time of discharge. In other words, the center coke
charging reduces the annular flow and prevents
temperature rise of the bottom side wall.
3 Input – Output Model
BF is a counter current heat and mass exchanger, in which
solid raw materials are charged from the top of the
furnace and hot blast, is sent through the bottom via
tuyeres. The heat and is transferred from the gas to the
burden and oxygen from the burden to the gas. Gas
ascends up the furnace while burden and coke descend
down through the furnace. The counter current nature of
the reactions makes the overall process an extremely
efficient one in reducing atmosphere. The real growth of
blast furnace technology came with the production of high
strength coke which enabled the construction of large size
blast furnaces.

Sinter Iron ore lump

Coke

Blast G
Clean BF
Hot Blast Hot Blas BF
Gas C Gas
Furnace P

Hot metal
Slag

PCM
SSM
4 The main chemical reaction
producing the molten iron Fe2O3 +
3CO → 2Fe + 3CO2[33]
[33]
C + O2 → CO2

CO2 + C → 2CO[33]
CaCO3 → CaO + CO2[29]
SiO2 + CaO → CaSiO3[34]
Preheated blast air blown into the furnace reacts with the
carbon in the form of coke to produce carbon monoxide
and heat. The carbon monoxide then reacts with the iron
oxideto produce molten iron and carbon dioxide. Hot
carbon dioxide, unreacted carbon monoxide, and nitrogen
from the air pass up through the furnace as fresh feed
material travels down into the reaction zone. As the
material travels downward, the counter-current gases both
preheat the feed charge, decompose the limestone to
calcium oxide and carbon dioxide, and begin to reduce the
iron oxides in the solid state. The main reaction
controlling the gas atmosphere in the furnace is called the
Boudouard reaction:
The decomposition of limestone in the middle zones of
the furnace proceeds according to the following reaction:
The calcium oxide formed by decomposition reacts with
various acidic impurities in the iron (notably silica), to
form a fayalitic slag which is essentially calcium silicate,
CaSiO3:[33]
The "pig iron" produced by the blast furnace has a
relatively high carbon content of around 4–5%, making it
very brittle, and of limited immediate commercial use.
Some pig iron is used to make cast iron. The majority of
pig iron produced by blast furnaces undergoes further
processing to reduce the carbon content and produce
various grades of steel used for tools and construction
materials.
Although the efficiency of blast furnaces is constantly
evolving, the chemical process inside the blast furnace
remains the same. According to the American Iron and
Steel Institute: "Blast furnaces will survive into the next
millennium because the larger, efficient furnaces can
produce hot metal at costs competitive with other iron
making technologies."[29] One of the biggest drawbacks of
the blast furnaces is the inevitable carbon dioxide
production as iron is reduced from iron oxides by carbon
and there is no economical substitute – steelmaking is one
of the unavoidable industrial contributors of the CO 2
emissions in the world.

5 Design Features and Furnace Parameters

Design production: 1.8 MTPA
Design productivity: 2.27 t/ m3/ day (on working
volume)
Hearth diameter: 11.05 meter
Working volume: 2308 m3
Inner volume: 2648 m3
Tuyeres : 30 No. (Double chamber)
Charging system: belt conveyor & PW Bell less top
Furnace top pressure: 1.50 bar
Rated daily hot metal production: 5200 ton
Hot blast temperature: 1175°C
Max blast pressure: 3.5 bar
High top pressure: 1.5 bar
6 Basic Oxygen Furnace
Hot Metal coming out of the Blast Furnace is collected in
ladles and poured into mixers. The mixers (2) serve the
purpose of storing as well as homogenization of
temperature and composition. Coke oven gas is used here
to maintain the temperature at 1260o C. the quantity of raw
materials for producing one ton of steel are as follows:
1073
Hot Metal kg
65.9
Scrap kg
15.6
Iron Ore kg
10.6
Briquetted lime kg
81.3
Calcined Lime kg
31.3
Dolomite kg
1.11
Fe- Mn kg
1.32
Fe- Si kg
0.15
Al kg
3.27
Coke Breeze kg
The shop has three converters each having a capacity of
110-130T per heat. The converters were commissioned by
Mannesmann Damage of Germany. Each converter has its
own lance system for blowing oxygen at high pressure so
as to form an emulsion on the surface of metal which
increases the surface area to such an extent that separation
of impurities takes place very fast.

7 Working of Blast Furnace

A Blast Furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used
for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.
In a blast furnace, fuel and ore are continuously supplied
through the top of the furnace, while air (sometimes with
oxygen enrichment) is blown into the bottom of the
chamber, so that the chemical reactions take place
throughout the furnace as the material moves downward.
The end products are usually molten metal and slag
phases tapped from the bottom, and flue gases exiting
from the top of the furnace.
Blast furnaces are to be contrasted with air furnaces (such
as reverberatory furnaces), which were naturally aspirated,
usually by the convection of hot gases in a chimney flue.
According to this broad definition, bloomeries for iron,
blowing houses for tin, and smelt mills for lead, would be
classified as blast furnaces. However, the term has usually
been limited to those used for smelting iron ore to produce
pig iron, an intermediate material used in the production of
commercial iron and steel.