BY
MICHIO NAKAYAMA *
SYNOPSYS:
Electric arc furnaces (EAF) generate much dust during operation, which contains
very high percentages of zinc, lead, and iron, as well as toxic organic substances.
It is difficult to landfill it for environmental reasons, and not desirable in terms of
wasting metal. However, most of the EAF dust is not processed sufficiently to
make it harmless and to recover valuable metals.
Some EAF dust treatment processes are now in use, but the high chloride and
zinc content prevents most of them from satisfying environmental regulations and
metal recovery.
JP Steel Plantech in Japan and KATEC R&D Corporation in Taiwan have
resolved this problem by developing a new electric smelting reduction furnace
(ESRF) process. The ESRF is a simple electric furnace, which uses only electric
energy for material heating and oxide reduction. In contrast, process gas
treatment systems are equipped with a wide range of schemes to prevent
chloride and zinc problems.
The first ESRF plant was constructed in Taiwan and started operation in
December 2009. This plant is working well as initially intended, achieving high
levels of zinc and iron recovery, with no gaseous pollutant emission, and very low
leaching of toxic heavy metals from slag.
Keywords : EAF, arc furnace, dust, Zn, ZnO, dioxin, leaching, metal recovery
1. Introduction
When scrap is melted and refined by an arc furnace, the dust generated accounts
for 2 % of the steel production. In Japan, arc furnaces are estimated to generate
about 500,000 ton of dust per year during annual steel production of 30 million
tons by EAF.
This dust contains many organic toxic substances in addition to metal oxides and
chlorides. Metal chlorides and zinc vaporize at the temperature level of 1,300
1,500 C at which the metal oxides are reduced. When the hot gas from the
process passes through gas-cooling and dust-collecting equipment, vapors of
metal chlorides and zinc will condense and solidify. This is the main cause of
problems in many EAF-dust processing plants.
A new electric smelting reduction furnace (ESRF) has been developed to solve
such problems, in addition to recovering metals and conforming to regulations on
pollutant emissions and heavy metal leaching.
The ESRF is a simple electric furnace, which uses only electric energy for
material heating and oxide reduction. In contrast, process gas treatment systems
are equipped with a wide range of schemes to prevent high chlorine and zinc
content problems.
The first ESRF plant was constructed in Taiwan and started test-operation in
December 2009 and commercial operation in September 2010. The plant is
working well as initially intended.
2. EAF dust from steel industry
Table 1. shows an example of the composition of EAF dust. The main
components are 20 % zinc, 30 % iron, and 5 % chlorine, and dioxins in EAF dust
are reported to be 0.5 -5.0 ng-TEQ/g-dust.
Table 1.
T-Zn
22.3
T-Fe
30.9
C
3.9
Cl
5.1
Pb
1.9
Na
1.5
K
1.4
Mn
3.0
Boiling temperature
(at 1 atm)
ZnCl2
318
732
NaCl
801
1,465
KCl
772
1,407
phase reaction and the sizes are too fine to settle in the combustion chamber. Hot
exhaust gas from the combustion chamber, which contains much crude ZnO and
chlorides, is quickly cooled through the multi-tube gas cooler and sent to the
bag-house to recover the particles. The temperature of the gas cooler is selected
to let the chlorides solidify on the vertical tube surface, and so any adhering
chlorides can be easily removed. This approach permits prolonged stable
operation and good ZnO recovery.
Crude ZnO
ZnO
Pig iron
Slag
63.30 % (50.2-73.7%)
3.29 %
CaO
28.61 %
Pb
4.21 % (0.35-7.22%)
Si
0.47 %
MgO
9.16 %
Cd
0.06 % (0.01-0.18%)
Mn
1.02 %
SiO2
20.86 %
Fe
3.49 %
0.36 %
Al2O3
9.02 %
Cu
0.13 %
0.27 %
FeO
2.86 %
Si
1.12 %
Cu
0.47 %
Zn
0.48 %
Ca
5.18 %
Ni
0.05 %
Pb
0.04 %
Cl
6.51 %
Cr
1.26 %
Cu
0.03 %
Na
2.46 %
Cr
0.54 %
2.35 %
Leaching of heavy metals was measured by both Taiwan standard and JIS.
Table 4. shows the results. They are considerably lower than the regulation value
of both Taiwan and Japan.
mg/L
0.008
0.29
N.D.
0.014
N.D.
0.0012
procedure
USA EPA
USA EPA
USA EPA
USA EPA
USA EPA
USA EPA
KCR ESRF
slag leaching data by JIS
Cd
Pb
Cr (+6)
Hg
As
Se
mg/L
< 0.005
< 0.005
< 0.02
< 0.0005
< 0.005
< 0.005
procedure
JIS K 0102
JIS K 0103
JIS K 0104
other standard
JIS K 0106
JIS K 0107
mg/L
1.00
5.00
2.50
5.00
0.20
5.00
Japanese criteria
for landfill
mg/L
0.01
0.01
0.05
0.0005
0.01
0.01
220-310 US$/ton-dust
Reduction of
outsourcing cost
Crude ZnO
0.35-0.42 ton/ton-dust
recovery rate
Pig iron recovery rate
Electricity
Reducing agent
Selling price is 25 % of Zn
LME price (2,400 US$/ton)
0.20-0.25 ton/ton-dust
1,600 kWh/ton-dust
0.15-0.17 ton/ton-dust
chute. The very high furnace temperature ensures quick incineration, and
non-combustibles are melted into the slag. There is no hazardous material in the
exhaust gas. The disposal of medical wastes is a promising business for furnace
owners.
7. Conclusion
The ESRF is a revolutionary smelting reduction process to deal with EAF dust.
The process solves the problems of environment pollution, unsatisfactory metal
recovery, and operation troubles caused by chlorides associated with the
old-fashioned dust processing processes. The first ESRF plant started to operate
in December 2009 in Taiwan and is working well. The process has great potential
to be used in EAF plants worldwide.
11