Blast furnace ironmaking: view on future developments

Abstract

Within many industries, there is a constant drive to reduce environmental impact and energy costs thereby ensuring maximum energy re-use. Within the iron and steel industry, the ironmaking processes are acknowledged to be the focus area when the topic of energy saving arises. A lot of attention has been applied to the ironmaking processes with regards to environment and energy saving, with established technologies being in place to reach these goals such that the process per se is now at or very close to theoretical limits. The following areas of the blast furnace process are currently the focus of Primetals activity with regard the target to further improve energy saving with incremental improvements: flue gas recycling within blast furnace stoves, MERIM dry gas cleaning process and dry slag granulation including heat recovery. This paper will present the concepts and latest status of the above technologies. The paper will review the progress to date of these development activities and thus present ideas on options for energy saving and reuse within the ironmaking system.