Potential of Alternative Organic Binders in Briquetting and Enhancing Residue Recycling in the Steel Industry

Abstract

Steel production generates various types of residues that cannot be directly recycled in the production process without pre-treatment and agglomeration. In the present study, recipes were designed to develop briquettes in a blast furnace (BF) with the partial replacement of cement with alternative commercial organic binders, including molasses–lime, bitumen, keracoal, carboxymethyl cellulose, and wood tar. The briquettes were produced using a technical-scale vibrating machine and the mechanical strength was evaluated using drop test and standard tumbler index results. The reduction behaviour was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) coupled with QMS. A heat and mass balance model (MASMOD) was used to evaluate the potential of developed briquettes to reduce the energy consumption and CO2 emissions from the BF. Although cement was superior in developing mechanical strength, bitumen was the best among the other alternative organic binders and provided sufficient strength to the briquettes at 2.0% addition, which corresponded to 18.2% replacement of total cement. The briquettes containing bitumen possessed a higher reduction rate and lower activation energy compared to cement. The MASMOD calculation demonstrated that the developed briquettes have the potential to provide annual savings of 15,000–45,000 tons of lump coke, 4500–19,500 tons of CO2 emissions, and 5000–20,000 tons of limestone in Swedish BFs.

Conversion of Imperata cylindrica, plastic face mask and mango peels to solid fuel briquette

“…The oxygen content obtained by using a formula where 100% subtract the sum of CHNS value as follows Eq (6),…”

“…The impact of using biomass plastic waste briquettes as fuel instead of charcoal helps minimize environmental impacts, including deforestation [4]. Biomass densification such as briquetting techniques that have been extensively analysed by academic researchers [2,5,6,7]. Previous literature focusing on coal and charcoal briquettes [8,9,10].…”

Comparative review on the technologies of briquetting, sintering, pelletizing and direct use of fines in processing of ore and technogenic materials

“…Subsequently, strengthening of ecological requirements arose the interest to the briquetting technology again. More wide application of the briquetting technique started during development of the processing methods of fine materials and metallurgical wastes [6] as well as in several direct iron reduction technologies, including those in the ferroalloys industry [7].…”

Accessibility and effects of binder types on the physical and energetic properties of ecological coal

“…Therefore, briquettes coal must be of good quality in order to guarantee food, health, economic and social security ( Sen et al., 2016 ; Djomdi et al., 2021 ). But, when briquettes coal manufacturing formulations are not followed, they lose their quality after subjecting themselves to handling, transportation or storage ( Zakari et al., 2013 ; Hounyevou et al., 2014 ; Dohm et al., 2016 ; Aransiola et al., 2019 and Mousa et al., 2022 ), and this encroaches its adoption by potential consumers ( Mahoro et al., 2022 ). Thus, in the manufacture of briquettes, some physical properties such as density, durability, compressive strength ( Mills, 1908 ; Borowski et al., 2017 ; Aransiola et al., 2019 ; Obi et al., 2022 ), hardness, moisture content ( Nursani et al., 2020 and Picchio et al., 2020 ) and the calorific value should be considered ( Zakari et al., 2013 ).…”