Comprehensive analysis on material and exergy balances of oxygen blast furnace

ABSTRACT

The OBF process is widely studied as an alternative ironmaking process, due to the social pressure of energy and environment at present. A comprehensive mathematical model of the OBF process is established, which is based on material and exergy balances. The process parameters of the OBF with different oxygen enriched blast were calculated through the model. The calculation results demonstrated that the material balance of carbon input in the OBF process decreased by 6.7% (OBF-I) and 22.4% (OBF-II) compared to the TBF process. Also, the industrial oxygen consumption increased from 185.88 m³ (OBF-I) to 228.32 m³ (OBF-II). The exergy output and the total exergy loss of the OBF-I process decreased by 1.5% and 5.6%, respectively, and those in the OBF-II process decreased by 16.60% and 30.81%. Due to the exergy indices in OBF-II process all improved, the OBF-II process was a significantly efficient ironmaking process compared to the TBF.

KEYWORDS:

• Oxygen blast furnace
• mathematic model
• exergy balance
• material balance

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support from National Key Research and Development Program (No. 2016YFB0601304) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51274033).