Some Challenges and Opportunities in Blast Furnace Operations

Blast furnace iron making faces a lot of pressure to decrease use of metallurgical coke and carbon footprint. In many shops around the world in the meanwhile, the convectional blast furnace process is being run at near optimum efficiency for a given set of raw material conditions. Efforts are therefore being made to generate innovative ideas. Top gas recycling and nitrogen-less blowing seem to be attracting attention. Efforts are continuing for increased pulverized coal injection (PCI) to decrease coke consumption. Several furnaces experience pressure drop problems when trying to increase coal injection due to poor burden quality. The present paper attempts to analyze few of the issues related to top gas recycling in a conventional practice and those of pressure drop during PCI. Recycling of top gas even without removal of CO₂ seems to hold possibilities for enhanced PCI though with worse fuel rate. Managing layer structure and the reactivity of coke particles can be addressed in various ways to improve bed permeability.