Circulation and accumulation of harmful elements in blast furnace and their impact on the fuel consumption

Abstract

The circulation and accumulation of harmful elements in blast furnace were investigated. The results show that the maximum concentration of K and Na in the belly is about 50 times of that in the charge. The zinc increased by 80 times and the Pb is insignificant. The impact of the circulation and accumulation of K, Na, Pb and Zn on the fuel consumption was quantitatively analyzed using Rist diagram. The results show that the gas utilization decreased and the coke rate increased linearly with the increase of load and accumulation times of each harmful element. Given the accumulation times of each element, the loading of Na, K, Zn and Pb into BF leads to the increase of coke rate by 13.99 kg/tHM, 6.25 kg/tHM, 3.63 kg/tHM and 0.02 kg/tHM, respectively. The increased coke rate and the decreased gas utilization under various loads and accumulation times of each element was estimated.

Keywords:

• Blast furnace
• Harmful elements
• Rist operation diagram
• Coke rate
• Gas utilisation

Acknowledgements

This work was financially supported by the National Science Foundation for Young Scientists of China (51304014), the Key Program of the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. U1260202) and the 111 Project (No. B13004). Support from the CSIRO Mineral Resources is gratefully acknowledged.