Blast Furnace Operating Conditions Manipulation for Reducing Coke Consumption and CO2 Emission

A comparative reduction behavior of wüstite samples prepared from iron ore sinter was investigated to find the optimum way for reducing coke consumption and CO₂ emission in blast furnace technology. A series of wüstite reduction experiments was carried out using different gas mixtures. A correlation between the experimental results and real data of blast furnaces at Egyptian Iron and Steel Company (EISCO) was demonstrated in order to optimize the coke consumption inside blast furnaces. Different theoretical models were applied on real data of blast furnaces to calculate the effect of operation parameters on the coke consumption. It was found that the wüstite reducibility can be controlled and enhanced using certain ratio of H₂ and CO gases. Such kind of enhancement decreases the remaining quantity of unreduced wüstite which descends to the high temperature region of blast furnace. The theoretical analysis of real data using certain values of H₂ and CO shows that increasing the amount of natural gas injection in blast furnace of EISCO will decrease the degree of direct reduction of iron oxide and consequently will decrease the amount of coke consumption.