<p> An experimental evaluation of three desulphurisers for pig iron has been conducted. Sodium vapor, blast furnace slag enriched with cerium oxide and a rare earth alloy named misch metal have been used. </p> / Thesis / Master of Engineering (MEngr)

Les émissions élevées de CO2 de la filière industrielle de fabrication des tuyaux en fonte résultent pour l'essentiel de l'emploi massif de carbone fossile, charbon et coke, comme combustible et agent réducteur dans les procédés. Substituer du carbone issu de biomasse au carbone fossile en vue de réduire ces émissions de CO2, avec application au cas d'une usine lorraine, a été l'idée de départ de ce travail. Différents types de biomasse ont été envisagés. Le bois et la paille seraient localement disponibles en quantité suffisante pour autoriser une substitution partielle de 20 % du coke. Cette biomasse doit cependant être traitée thermiquement (séchage et pyrolyse) avant de satisfaire les spécifications techniques imposées par les procédés métallurgiques (agglomération, cokerie, haut fourneau). Six scénarios d'usage de la biomasse au haut fourneau ou à l'agglomération ont été sélectionnés. Pour les évaluer sur la base de leur mérite environnemental, nous avons réalisé une analyse de cycle de vie comparative en suivant une approche du type berceau à la porte. Point original de notre étude, l'inventaire de cycle de vie est issu de modèles systémiques des principaux procédés, spécifiquement développés et intégrés à un logiciel de diagrammes de flux. Grâce à ces modèles et notamment celui du haut fourneau, on a pu déterminer les taux de remplacement du coke par trois types de biomasse (charbon de bois en blocs, charbon de bois pulvérisé, bois torréfié pulvérisé) et prédire les modifications de fonctionnement qu'entrainerait l'injection de biomasse. Les résultats de l'analyse de cycle de vie montrent que l'injection de bois, carbonisé ou torréfié, sous forme pulvérisée aux tuyères du haut fourneau serait une solution intéressante d'un point de vue environnemental : baisse des émissions de gaz à effet de serre (-15 %) et des impacts sur la santé humaine et sur les écosystèmes. A l'heure actuelle cependant, le coût économique d'une telle solution demeure excessif / High CO2 emissions from the industrial production of pig iron pipes are mainly due to the massive use of fossil carbon, coal and coke, as a fuel and/or a reducing agent in the processes. The use of biogenic carbon as a substitute for fossil carbon in order to reduce the CO2 emissions, in the case of an existing plant in Lorraine, was the starting point of our work. Different types of biomass were investigated. Local resources for wood and straw would be sufficient for a partial substitution for 20% of the coke. However, this kind of biomass should first undergo a thermal pretreatment step (drying and pyrolysis) to fit the technical requirements for the metallurgical processes (sinter plant, coke oven and blast furnace). Four scenarios of using biomass in the blast furnace or at the sinter plant were selected. To evaluate their environmental performances, we produced a comparative life cycle assessment, using a cradle-to-gate approach. An original feature of our study lies in the use of systems modeling for the determination of the life cycle inventories of the main processes, which were modeled using a flowsheeting software. From these models, particularly the model of the blast furnace, we could evaluate the replacement ratio of three biomass types (charcoal lumps, charcoal fines and torrefied wood fines) for the coke and predict the influence of biomass injection in the blast furnace on its operation. The results of the life cycle assessment show that the injection of pulverized, torrefied or carbonized, wood through the tuyeres of the blast furnace would be an attracting solution from an environmental point of view. It would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 15%, as well as mitigate the impacts on human health and ecosystems. Yet, the costs associated to such a solution are currently too high

This report is about continuous temperature measurements of pig-iron at tapping from blast furnace 2 in Oxelösund, SSAB. Nowadays the temperature is only checked once at every tapping. The purpose of this project is to see if the process stability increases by continuously knowing the temperature and to compare the costs of this new technique with the technique used today. Possible savings due to less consumption of coke/coal if the silicon amount and the temperature are closer to their aim values will be regarded and if as little steam consumption as possible are used. The process stability can be divided into different sub goals. The ordinary measuring techniques were investigated as a part of the main goal; such as the ordinary measured temperature, the pig-iron and slag samples. The new continuous temperature measuring technique was compared with the ordinary temperature measurement and investigations of the life length were done. How representative the pig-iron and slag samples are, when taking them at the time they are today, are also looked into. The continuous measured temperature showed around 0,37 % higher temperature than the ordinary measured temperature. The pig-iron and slag samples should be taken as they are today, for mainly safety aspects. By using continuous temperature measurement, some of the sub goals can be achieved for a more stable process. The economy on the other hand has shown that large savings can be done by using this continuous temperature method due to a more stable process. This is mainly because of a decrease in steam usage in the experimental period. By regarding only the material of the methods the continuous temperature equipment is a bit more expensive, but the savings are much larger so the continuous temperature method is beneficial. With time this method could probably improve the process stability even more since the operators will deal with the information and the probe better.

The most widely used process to reduce iron ore and to produce pig iron is the blast furnace. The blast furnace is a large source of CO2 emissions since it is a coal based process and due to that the main energy source and reducing agent is coke, it is difficult to reduce these further. IRONARC is a new method used to produce pig iron by reducing iron ore and all the energy used for heating comes from electricity, which gives the opportunity to use renewable resources. The process uses plasma generators that inject gas at high temperature and velocity into a slag that consists of iron oxides. The iron oxides are reduced in two steps that appear by using gas as reduction agent in the first step and carbon in the second step.   It exists in a smaller pilot plant scale and this project was the first step in the future upscaling of the IRONARC process. Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling was used and the goal was to determine the penetration depth of the IRONARC pilot plant process by numerical simulation in the software ANSYS FLUENT. The penetration depth is of importance because to be able to scale up the process it is important to know the flow pattern and the structure of the flow in the process, which is dependent on how far into the slag the gas reaches. Two numerical models were made. First an air-water model that described the initial penetration of air injected into water. The air-water simulation was made with parameters and data from an experiment found in literature. This was done to build an accurate CFD model for the penetration depth in FLUENT and validate the model with the results of the penetration depth from the experiment. The air-water simulation gave good and promising results and yielded the same result regarding the penetration depth as the experiment.  The model for the penetration depth was then used with the IRONARC geometry and parameters. After simulation the penetration depth of the IRONARC process was determined. For the future, the penetration depth of the pilot plant needs to be measured and compared with the simulated result for the penetration depth.

The thermodynamic conditions for the behaviour of silicon in the lower part of the blast furnace have been the focus of the thesis. More specifically, the influences of temperature, carbon activity, total gas pressure and Fe reoxidation on silicon have been studied. Calculations show that an increased temperature gives higher equilibrium ratio between silicon in hot metal and slag. Furthermore, laboratory reduction studies shows that the carbon activity in the cohesive zone increase with an increased reduction time. Increased carbon activity will increase the equilibrium silicon content in liquid metal. Equilibrium calculations based on tapped hot metal and slag shows that the equilibrium silicon content of the liquid metal phase is higher than measured at tapping. Around the raceway area the equilibrium silicon content is very high. The high equilibrium silicon content makes it important to differ between the conditions under operation and the conditions of samples taken out of the blast furnace before studied. The equilibrium silicon content is strongly correlated to the CO gas partial pressure. Often this partial pressure is changed during sampling and cooling of samples. At tapping the equilibrium partial pressure of CO has been calculated to higher values than the total gas pressure inside the blast furnace. Metal droplets found in tapped slags are probably formed by reduction of FeO. In the periphery part of the lower part of the blast furnace, it is believed that mainly FeO oxidises silicon in hot metal. It is not expected that the metal droplets in the slag is formed if FeO oxidises dissolved silicon. Instead, the iron droplets may form at reactions with gas, coke carbon or coal powder carbon. Around some droplets increased magnesium content has been found. This may be due to reactions with gaseous magnesium that, according to thermodynamic conditions, is easy to form. It has been reported that much FeO may be formed in the raceway area. The metal droplets may indicate how much FeO that reacts with other components than liquid iron. The iron found in metal droplets in the slag corresponds to between 0.02 and 0.2 wt-% FeO in the slag.