Production of Low-P Steel

Production of low phosphorus steel using the basic oxygen steelmaking process is conventionally achieved by maintaining a highly basic slag. This leads to high flux consumption, generates a large volume of slag and restricts recycling of the slag due to presence of free lime. The environmental impact goes further, since the calcined lime involves depletion of a mineral resource, consumption of fossil fuels and release of CO₂. However, recent studies indicate that adequate dephosphorisation is possible in the BOF even if the slag basicity is reduced from the current practice (3.3–3.6) to a level of 2.7–2.8. Phosphorus partitioning deviates considerably from equilibrium and post stirring of bath helps in lowering bath phosphorus. Induction furnace is widely used to produce structural grade steel. Since lining is usually acidic, effective phosphorus removal is not achieved. But using basic lining reasonably low phosphorus steel could be produced.