Part2 Outline of CCT

Iron Making and General Industry Technologies (General Industry Technologies)

2B2. New Scrap Recycling Process (NSR)

In charge of research and development: Center for Coal Utilization, Japan; Nippon Sanso Corp.; and NKK Corp. (present JFE Steel Corporation) Project type: Coal Production and Utilization Technology Promotion Grant Period:1992-1997 (6 years)

Outline of technology

1.Background In Japan, currently about 30 million tons of iron scrap is recycled every year, and most of them are melted in arc furnaces consuming large amount of electric power. The energy efficiency of arc furnace is as low as about 25% (converted to primary energy taking into account of efficiency of power generation and of power transmission). Thus a melting process having higher energy efficiency is wanted. To this point, the NSR process is a non-power melting technology that melts metals such as iron scrap utilizing high temperature energy obtained from direct combustion of pulverized coal by oxygen. The NSR process has been developed aiming to significantly increase the energy efficiency compared with that of conventional technology.

2.Development schedule The development was promoted by a joint team of Center for Coal Utilization, Japan, Nippon Sanso Corp., and NKK Corp. (present JFE Steel Corporation). The main subject of development was the furnace structure and the burner arrangement to attain high
Table 1 Development schedule 1992 Survey Batch-furnace Bench scale (1 t/batch) Pilot plant scale (5 t/batch) Continuous furnace (pilot plant scale: 6 t/h) 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997

efficiency melting. The study began from a batchwise melting furnace. With the result of the batch-furnace operation, the continuous melting furnace was developed aiming at higher energy efficiency.

3.Outline of process and result of study Figure 1 shows the process outline of the continuous melting furnace. The melting furnace has a melting section, basin section, and holding section, each of which is separately functioned. Each section has pulverized coal - oxygen burner. The oxygen supplied to the burner is preheated to high temperatures (400-600 C) by an oxygen preheater to combust
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the pulverized coal. With the above-described system, even pulverized coal normally giving slow combustion rate can be combusted at high rate and high efficiency similar with those of liquid fuel such as heavy oil. The melting section is in shaft shape, where the raw material charged from top of the furnace is directly melted by the burner

Bag filter Flue gas

Blower Raw material Oxygen generator Burner controller Oxygen preheater Pulverized coal charge unit Tuyere Nitrogen generator Open/close damper Slide gate

Pulverized coal oxygen burner

Pulverized coal tank

Molten steel

Fig. 1 NSR process flow 41

Fig. 2 Pilot plant (6t/h)

Clean Coal Technologies in Japan

flame at lower section of the furnace. The melted raw material flows through the basin section and enters the holding section. The basin section soaks the molten steel. The carbon content of the molten steel in the basin section can be controlled by injecting powder coke into the furnace.
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transmission. Compared with normal arc furnace, the melting energy was reduced by 40%, achieving high energy efficiency. Furthermore, the process achieved highly superior result to the conventional process in terms of environmental measures such as the significant suppression of generation of dust (excluding ash in pulverized coal) and of dioxins owing to the control of intrafurnace atmosphere.
1600 Coke 1400 Melting energy(Mcal/T) 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 EAF (380Wh/T) NSR Pulverized coal Electric power Oxygen

The holding section

stores the molten steel for a specified period, and rapidly heats the molten steel to about 1,600 C, and then taps the molten steel by the EBT system. To the basin section and the holding section, molten steel agitation gas is injected from bottom of the respective furnaces to enhance the heat transfer from flame to molten steel and the slag-metal reaction. All the combustion gas coming from individual sections passes through the melting section, and is vented from the furnace top after being used to preheat the raw material in the melting section. The raw material is continuously charged from the furnace top and melted in the furnace. The tapping from the holding section is conducted intermittently. The process effectively utilizes the heat transfer characteristics of oxygen burner, and achieves high efficiency melting. Figure 3 shows the result of comparison of melting energy between the process and the arc furnace. The electric power (oxygen is also added because it is produced by electricity) is counted to the primary energy including loss of power generation and of power

Fig. 3 Comparison of melting energy

4.Toward practical application The study team has already completed the design for actual scale facilities. With the influence of current poor economy in the electric furnace industry, however, the process has not been brought into practical application. Nevertheless, since the process is a non-power melting technology which is few in the world, and has a strong advantage of not influenced by electric power infrastructure, the study team continues to make efforts toward the practical applications also in abroad.

Fig. 4 Commercial scale plant (50 t/h)

References

1) Hiroshi Igarashi, Toshio Suwa, Yukinori Ariga, and Nobuaki Kobayashi: ZAIRYO TO PROCESS (Materials and Processes), Vo.12, No.1, p135 (1999) 2) Hiroshi Igarashi, Nobuaki Kobayashi, and Hiroyuki Nakabayashi: Technical Bulletin of Nippon Sanso Corp., (19) pp30-37 (2000)

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