Identification of the carbon source in blast furnace flue dust through characterisation and statistical analysis

ABSTRACT

Flue dust from blast furnace is being regularly analysed in the Chemical Laboratory at Tata Steel Plant at Jamshedpur. The analysis includes determination of carbon by combustion-infrared technique, loss on ignition (LOI) at 1000°C and analysis of other constituents such as iron oxide (Fe₂O₃), lime (CaO), silica (SiO₂), phosphorus (P), alumina (Al₂O₃), magnesium oxide (MgO) and manganese oxide (MnO). The period for determination of carbon and other constituents is usually around 15–20 min, whereas LOI determination takes about 2 h, thus creating an unavoidable delay in reporting the results to the customer. The present study provides an interesting scientific solution to avoid this delay by establishing a strong linear correlation between carbon (≈6.96–45%) and LOI (≈ 4.0–52.0%) values. The study also indicates that the carbon in the flue dust is from the carbonaceous matter fed to the furnace and not due to the fluxes introduced in the furnace during the charging because no correlation was observed between the carbon values and CaO, MgO values of flue dust. This correlation obtained is further proved with the help of characterisation techniques such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared analysis (FTIR) and Raman analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Flue dust
• linear correlation
• carbon
• LOI
• characterisation

Acknowledgments

Authors are thankful to the Tata Steel Management, Dr Sanjay Chandra, Chief R&D for giving an opportunity to carry out the study. The authors sincerely acknowledge the support and services provided by staff of Chemical Laboratory, Scientific Services division.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

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