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MgO-C bricks with and without antioxidant additions? Latest Upd

Does anyone have experience with newer generation MgO-C bricks that use a better resin that
decarburizes to form a more graphitic type residue than older resins that form a fine amorphous
ash powder? The claimed benefits of the MgO-C brick with out antioxidants are ability to reduce
coarse graphite addition and reduce cost of refractory. But is the performance comparable in
Follow Bill steel ladles where desulfurization and refine is done in a LMF? In an EAF? In a BOF?
9 days ago

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Gautam Bardoloi, P. Carlo Ratto and 4 others like this

13 comments

Gautam Bardoloi • Dear Sir,

Normally, as per my experience in several companies, we use -196,-195,-194 grades of

natural flake graphite. We never used flakes such as +895 or +196.Our performance had
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been good in several steel plants. We do not have experience of using any special resin
except phenolic resin. We also do not use solid resin now a days except for specific
cases.

We have also reduced the use of pitch powder as our experts say that pitch is not good for
magnesia carbon brick.

As per our experience, Ads by Lin

1.Antioxidant is required for slag zone of ladles in shops with higher LF/RH/VD treatment.
The percentage of antioxidant in purging and non purging side of slag zone can be
different.
2.Antioxidant is required for EAF Hotspot, slag zone, burner region and EBT Tap hole
3.Antioxidant is required for BOF charge pad,tap hole,top cone,etc.Antioxidant is not
necessary for lower cone and barrel area.
4.Antioxidant is required in metal zone for small ladles(< 80 ton capacity) which are routed
through VD for 80-99% heats.
5.Aluminium powder as antioxidant performs better for Aluminium killed steel compared to
Silicon powder for silicon killed Steel. So,for silicon killed steel,antioxidant Silicon Metal
may be avoided to reduce batch cost and Aluminium powder is not required.
6.For dual killed heats, both antioxidants can be used with certain percentage as per the
batch recipe. This also depends on the price factor.It is difficult to add costly antioxidants
such as boron carbide, elemental Boron due to due to cost factors.
7.Antioxidant is required for magnesia carbon bricks used in tundish impact area to get
high HMOR. Manager's
8.Now a days, for many customers, price is the first criteria. Many customers want best
performance at lowest price. In such situation, suppliers may not add costly
antioxidant.However,there is scope for improving performance in such plants by using
antioxidant and higher grade of fused magnesia.
9.Antioxidant is not necessary for normal steel grades in shops where there is no VD/RH
and where less heats are routed through LF.
10.Anti oxidant is not necessary in shops where tap to tap duration is less than 2 or 2 1/2 Top Influen
hours. That is to say wherever holding time is less and ladle cleaning is done fast, in those
shops, bricks without antioxidant may be cost effective and bricks can achieve the target if
customer's brick life expectation is moderate.

These are some of our observations. We may not be correct in some cased and would like
to know more from all experts to enhance our knowledge.
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wang hilda • Good knowledge sharing. Al, Si, SiC, B4C are used as antioxidant additions.

7 days ago • Like 3

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Jill Cooper • Of course the old pitch bonded bricks didn't require anti-oxidants either. It's a Group Sta
pity that the pitch created health issues as they were otherwise very good. When I started,
they were still in use in the plant I was working at and they were definitely as good as or
better than the resin bonded ones for oxidation resistance.
CHECK
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In any case, it can be hard to compare one plant to another as they all seem to perform INSIGH
slightly differently. This can be the result of different ladle handling procedures, shop
layout, percentage of heats sent to the LF etc. etc.. A shop with excellent ladle handling STATIS
might get a better performance from these bricks than one that leaves it's ladles on ON THIS G
preheat for many days before use

The best thing to do would be to put in a trial panel in a ladle so that it's not too difficult to
fix and easy to monitor. Any trial panel in an EAF or BOF should cross over into an area of
known high oxidation (so that you know it's worst performance) but be in an area that's
easiest to monitor and gun if required.
7 days ago • Like 5

Heiko Dettela • Nice discussion regarding this topic.

The good old pitch was replaced by less harmful binders , which do have the same and
even better properties.
As I work for the biggest MgO C producer world wide , we do have both product lines in
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our portfolio.
The new product line called Syncarbon, which replaced the pitch bonded products mainly
not uses AOX , while for our resind product line we do add from time to time all kind of
AOX.

Personally I believe the wrong AOX on the wrong place of the lining will decrease the
performance.
Better increase the quality of the raw materials (fused MgO or Graphite) than adding
expensive AOX, which by the way can be quite harmful for some steel grades.
7 days ago • Like 4

Fahimeh Saeedi • Hi members and thank you for your nice discussions ,in some area in
steel making shops as like as barrel area in BOF ,pitch bonded magnesia bricks have
higher flexibility , in situ graphitization and performance than MgO-C resin bonded bricks
but as Mrs. Jill and other members explained, for the reason of healthy problems of pitch
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,a new generation of carbon with higher carbon content and higher softening point and
more flexibility with environmentally friendly properties recommend to replace with pitch, of
course in combination with resin bond system but view point of cost , is more expensive
.In the case of AOX I agree with Mr. Heiko ,although we use all kinds of antioxidants for
different areas of containers in steel making shops, higher grades of raw materials have
more effective properties than more expensive AOX.
6 days ago • Like 3

Martyn Frith • Before the wholesale adoption of high quality large crystal high C:S ratio
fused MgO and the introduction of higher performance resin systems (e.g. Carbores) I
would agree that most non-pitch based product required combinations of Al, Si, Al-Mg to
optimise performance in the more stressed areas such as LF slag lines, BOV charge pads
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etc. In the 2 shops I work in the ladle systems would fall into the 'difficult' category with
significant resisdence times and secondary processing and metallics are not employed in
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case.
6 days ago • Like 4

Bill Porter • Thank you to all for your insightful responses.

Does anyone have exoerience in a shop that switched from a MgO-C brick with high AOx
(3% Al and 1% Si) to a much lower or zero AOx?
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My experiece is that the brick with the high AOx perform for longer service life especially
in the highest wear areas like MgO-10C with high AOx in stir quadrant in steel ladles that
desulphurize in the ladle and in EAF high wear zones, BOF trunnions,etc.

BUT it appears that newer technology developed in last 5 years or so based on much
lower or zero AOx allows reduction of graphite content and reduction of AOx for lower
cost. Is cost reduced enough to upgrade the MgO source to fused 98 grade MgO from
97-97.5% MgO?

My real reason for asking the above is to see which option might offer the best cost per
ton of steel produced before introducing brick into the steel shop.

I believe this newer lower AOx technology originated from the EU in response to
onslaught of cheap made in China imports. So I see that cost can be reduced - but would
appreciate any insight regarding relative performance.

T.I.A.
4 days ago • Like 2

Martyn Frith • Both shops I work with made this change.

It the BOF shop the change was minimal but there are a lot of process variables, also the
stirring is via EMS as opposed to PP so the combination erosion/corrosion is not directly
analogous to your scenario.
Follow Martyn
Carbon was retained at the same level of 12-13%. Costwise there was a slight offset,
however European products for this application tend to be combinations of HP fused with
LC sinter. These perform at the same level as LC mono crystalline fused Chinese
manufactured product. I think the mono crystalline nature and a high C:S ratio in the fused
is more important than the overall purity level.
Like any shop though a few high KWh casts with a low C:S slag and a unhealthy dose of
reducible slag oxides will diminish most of the differences between the product types!
4 days ago • Like 3

K Sridhar • I feel the same opinion of Mr.Gautham.

1 day ago • Like 1

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Gautam Bardoloi • Dear Sir,

By eliminating AOx,cost saving per MT will be about USD 90/MT
By improving FM grade,expenses per MT will be about USD 50/MT
Net benefit,by removing AOx is about USD 40/MT
Follow Gautam 1 day ago • Like
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13 hours ago • Like 1

Ruth Engel • Although this is not a technical, answer it seems that the use of the new, no
AOx brick in these applications is somewhat controlled by geography, with North America
using one type and Europe the other. I cannot comment about other areas.
9 hours ago • Like 1
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Bill Porter • Hasnain

One of the best European MgO Spinel brick makers with a plant in China is RefraTechnik.
www.refra.com
Follow Bill 6 hours ago • Like 1

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