For efficient blast furnace ironmaking, it is desired to have low reducing agent rate, primarily coke rate. Developing technology to improve reaction efficiency of the blast furnace is extremely important as it has the potential to allow a decrease in the reducing agent rate as well as CO2 emissions. The reaction efficiency of blast furnace can be improved by lowering the Thermal Reserve Zone (TRZ) temperature; which is also the starting temperature of coke gasification reaction. In present study, nut-coke has been coated with in-plant waste, consisting mainly of iron oxide and calcium oxide, as catalyst. There was a clear increase of 10 points in the reactivity of coated nut-coke. The coated nut-coke have been subjected to non-standard high temperature experiments simulating blast furnace conditions with reducing gas consisting of CO, CO2 and N2 to capture the effect of catalytic coating on the onset of gasification reaction. The high temperature experiments carried out advise the following: i) A drop of 100 °C in the reaction beginning temperature of catalyst coated nut-coke as compared to non-coated one ii) A typical calculation shows that the lowering of reaction beginning temperature corresponds to a potential carbon rate savings of about 2.5 kg/ton of hot metal (thm). Furthermore, in a trial conducted at blast furnace with charging catalyst coated nut-coke, it has been observed that the carbon rate during the trial period was 3 kg/thm lower than the base period. The findings of blast furnace trial agree with that of the experimental one.
The gasification characteristics of metallurgical coke plays an important role in controlling the thermal balance of blast furnace. In this work, the gasification reaction kinetics of nut coke was enhanced using catalytic materials to improve the reaction efficiency of blast furnace. The starting temperature of nut coke gasification was reduced by 100 °C using the solid waste materials (lime fines and iron oxide dust) that are generated internally from an integrated steel plant. Analysis of catalyst doped nut coke showed that the coke reactivity index (CRI) improved by 5–6 points over the normal nut coke. The catalyst doping facility with catalyst slurry preparation tank, slurry transfer pump, basket filter and spray header fitted with nozzles was developed to produce the catalyst doped nut coke on large scale. The plant trial was conducted in a commercial blast furnace for a month-long duration by replacing the normal nut coke with catalyst doped nut coke. As a result, the reduction of 4 kg carbon rate per ton of hot metal production was achieved through this methodology. Also, slight improvement was observed in the gas utilization efficiency of blast furnace when catalyst doped nut coke was used.
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