Removal of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur

from tool steel during vacuum degassing

K. Steneholm1, M. Andersson2, A. Tilliander2 and P. G. Jönsson*2
The removal of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur during vacuum degassing of a tool steel grade
was studied. Both slag and steel samples were collected before and after vacuum treatment for
10 heats. From these, the chemical compositions of steel and slag were determined. Thereafter,
the removal rates of sulphur, hydrogen and nitrogen were calculated. For sulphur and hydrogen
only first order reaction models were considered. However, for nitrogen both first order and
second order kinetic models were studied. The results showed that the removal of hydrogen and
nitrogen can be described with first order reaction models. However, the removal rate of sulphur
follows the equilibrium sulphur content at all stages during the vacuum degassing. It is also clear
that after 10 min of degassing the hydrogen and nitrogen removal is more or less finished for the
studied steel grade. However, the sulphur refining can still be carried out for longer times to reach
lower values.
Keywords: Ladle refining, Steel, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Sulphur, Vacuum degassing

Introduction Theoretical background

The demand today of clean steel in tool steel production
is increasing continuously. For tool steels, important
material properties include hardness, toughness and
polishability. Therefore, in order to reach the high
demands of certain properties, the cleanliness of steel is
of great importance. Here, the cleanliness is defined to
include impurity elements as well as non-metallic
inclusions.
Vacuum degassing of liquid steel during ladle treat-
ment is an important unit process for removal and
control of several detrimental impurity elements. During
vacuum degassing the content of dissolved gases in the
steel melt, first and foremost hydrogen and nitrogen,
can be decreased. In addition, carbon and sulphur can
be removed to the gas phase (as CO) and the slag
phase respectively. Furthermore, the number of oxide
inclusions can be decreased significantly during the
vacuum degassing operation by separation to the top
slag.1
The present study focuses on the removal of hydro-
gen, nitrogen and sulphur during vacuum degassing of a
tool steel grade (H13) in an ASEA-SKF ladle furnace.
The samples used in the present work have been
collected from a previous work, which was focused on
the change of inclusion characteristics during vacuum
treatment.2 The objective of this study was not to obtain
a model, but to implement the latest results in the
production process.
1
Uddeholm AB, SE-683 85 Hagfors, Sweden
2
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
*Corresponding author, email par@mse.kth.se
Many studies of hydrogen and sulphur removal from
steel during ladle refining have been carried out. Many
of them conclude that the removal rates obey a first
order reaction. Hence, the thermodynamics and kinetics
related to hydrogen and sulphur removal3,4 are well
established. However, the treatment of nitrogen is still
difficult to handle. This is due to that the information
found in the literature is inconsistent or conflicting,
whereas for hydrogen and sulphur the previous authors
have one common opinion. In order to establish the
removal rate of nitrogen, the first step is to decide
whether the reaction is first or second order. Therefore,
this is the main question being discussed in the major
part of the existing literature.
The first order differential equation describing the
general refining rate for an impurity element in the steel
can be written as follows
d½%X  krA  
~{ ½%X {½%X eq (1)
dt M
where X represents the concentration of impurity ele-
ments such as hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur. Further-
more, the parameter k is the mass transfer coefficient, r
is the steel density, A is the interface area between the
steel phase and the refining phase (effective reaction
area), M is the steel mass and [%X] is the concentration
of the impurity element. The parameter [%X]eq repre-
sents the hypothetical concentration of the refined
impurity element in the steel phase in equilibrium with
the current concentration in the refining phase.
In the present study it has not been possible to
estimate reasonable values of the effective reaction area

ß 2013 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining

Published by Maney on behalf of the Institute
Received 23 December 2011; accepted 19 March 2012
DOI 10.1179/1743281212Y.0000000029 Ironmaking and Steelmaking 2013 VOL 40 NO 3 199
Steneholm et al. Removal of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur from tool steel

A, and therefore an overall rate constant b, has been are both based on the same theory as previously mentioned,
used, which is defined as follows i.e. first order reaction at low surfactant concentration
and second order at high concentrations. This may be
krA
b~ (2) described as follows
M  {1
kCR
The equilibrium content of element X can be calculated if ww ½%Neq z½%Ni
using Sievert’s law km (7)
KX first order reaction
%½X ~ ðpX2 Þ1=2 (3)
fX  {1
kCR
where KX is shown for each element in Table 1. Hence, if vv ½%Neq z½%Ni
km (8)
equation (3) for the elements hydrogen and nitrogen can
be written as follows second order reaction
  where kCR is the chemical reaction coefficient, km is the
ðpX2 Þ1=2 {DGx0
%½X ~ exp (4) mass transfer coefficient, [%N]iis the interfacial concen-
fX RT tration, [%N]eq is the nitrogen concentration in the steel
where pX2 is the partial pressure of element X in the gas melt in equilibrium with nitrogen gas.
phase, fX is the activity coefficient for element X, R is the
gas constant and T is the temperature in Kelvin. Also, in Experimental
order to simplify the calculation it was assumed that the The trials were performed at Uddeholms AB’s steel
partial pressure of element X was equal to the total plant in Hagfors, Sweden. More specifically, the
pressure in each case. sampling was concentrated on the vacuum degassing
The necessary equations for each element, hydrogen, part of the ladle treatment process.
nitrogen and sulphur are shown in Table 1. For
calculation of activity coefficients by using Wagner’s Process description
equation, the required interaction parameter eiH was The steel plant at Uddeholm AB in Hagfors is scrap
taken from a compilation by Engh.5 In addition, the based and the steel scrap is melted in an electric arc
standard Gibbs free energy values in Table 1 were taken furnace with a nominal capacity of 65 tons. After
from Hayes.6 Hence, by solving equation (1) for each melting and refining, the steel melt is tapped in a ladle
element, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulphur, the following and transferred to the heating station. Here, the furnace
expression was obtained slag is removed and the steel is deoxidised by aluminium
  and alloyed. Thereafter, y740 kg of synthetic slag
%Xt {%Xeq formers are added in order to protect the steel melt
{ln ~bH t (5)
%X0 {%Xeq from the atmosphere and to assist the sulphur refining
where %Xt, %X0 and %Xeq are the element contents in operation during the vacuum degassing period. The steel
and slag are heated by graphite electrodes, which lead to
the steel at time t5t, t50 and at equilibrium respec-
melting of the synthetic slag. During the heating period
tively. Also, X equals H, S or N.
in the ladle furnace, the molten steel is homogenised
However, in the case of nitrogen it may be wise to
using induction stirring. Then, the ladle is moved to the
consider the second order reaction as well. For example,
degassing station, where a vacuum lid is placed on top of
Cho and Rao7 state that for high sulphur contents the
the ladle. Argon is purged through two porous plugs for
nitrogen desorption is a second order reaction. It has
stirring of the steel melt and to promote the conditions
also been suggested by Harada and Janke8 that with
for removal of hydrogen and nitrogen from the steel.
both high sulphur and oxygen contents in the steel, both
The ladle is also stirred with induction during the
first and second order reactions will take place.
degassing period in order to improve the fluid flow
Therefore, they suggest that the nitrogen removal may characteristics in the steel. Before sending the ladle to
be written as follows uphill casting, the molten steel endures a short time of
d½%N k’rA induction stirring in order to promote inclusion removal
~{ (½%N2 {½%N2eq ) (6) to the top slag. A schematic view of the process route
dt M
can be seen in Fig. 1.
where k9 is the second order mass transfer coefficient.
According to Deo and Boom,9 the two models pre- Sampling procedure
dicting mass transfer control (first order) and chemical The studied steel grade was an H13 steel, which had
reaction control (second order) may both be used. They the composition of 0?39C–1?0Si–0?4Mn–5?3Cr–1?3Mo–

Table 1 Thermodynamic relationships used in calculations of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur removal

Hydrogen removal Sulphur removal/oxygen activity Nitrogen removal

KH2 (g)5H 2Alz3O5Al2O3(s) KN2 (g)5N

DGH 0
~36485z30:46T (J mol21) DGAl0
2 O3
~{1205115z386:714T (J mol21) DGN 0
~3598z23:891T (J mol21)
 0
 !  0

aH {DGH 0 aN {DGN
{DGAl 2 O3
aAl O
KH ~ ~exp KAl ~exp ~ 2 2 33 KN ~ ~exp
ðpH2 Þ1=2 RT RT aAl aO ðpN2 Þ1=2 RT
   
aH ~fH %Heq aAl ~fAl ½%Al aN ~fN %Neq
P i P i P i
log fH ~ eH ½%i  log fAl ~ eAl ½%i  log fN ~ eN ½%i 

200 Ironmaking and Steelmaking 2013 VOL 40 NO 3

 Steneholm et al. Removal of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur from tool steel

2 Sampling occasions during vacuum treatment process:

0 min represents vacuum treatment start

Sample preparation and chemical analysis

1 Description of steelmaking process
0?9V (wt-%). In a first series of trials, five heats were
sampled. Moreover, for verification purposes and to
ensure good sampling quality, five more heats were
sampled in a second series of trials. Hence, in total 10
heats were studied. Also, three types of different
samplings were made: steel sampling, slag sampling
and temperature measurements. Sampling was made at
two times during the ladle treatment, namely before
vacuum treatment and during a stop of vacuum
treatment at a predetermined time as shown in Fig. 2.
Vacuum treatment was considered to start when a
pressure of 4 mbar was reached. In addition, the
inductive stirring power for all heats was 900 A. An
automatic sampler10 mounted at the vacuum station was
used for steel samples and temperature measurements.
This procedure ensured a reproducible sample taking,
meaning that the samples were taken at the same
position in the steel melt. Each sampling procedure took
y2 min. It should be noted that the slag samples were
taken separately. More specifically, by using a slag
scoop, not using the automatic sampler. Two steel
samples per sampling occasion were taken using rapid
solidification samples from Electro-Nite-Rescon. These
have a solidification time of y2 s.
For each steel sampling, two samples were obtained.
One sample was used to obtain steel composition and
later on used for light optical microscopy. In addition,
the other steel sample was used for determination of the
oxygen, carbon and sulphur contents.
The fusing method (a CS-444 LS carbon/sulphur
determinator supplied by the Leco Corporation in St.
Joseph, MI, USA) was used to determine the carbon and
sulphur contents. The total oxygen content in the steel
was also determined by the fusing method using the TC-
436 Leco Corporation equipment. The concentrations of
the other elements in the steel samples were determined
with a Phillips Perl X-2 XRF analyser and an optical
emissions spectrometer. The slag samples were ground
and cast into small glass discs. Thereafter, they were
examined using an XRF analyser.
Results and discussion
The purpose of this study was to be able to implement the
results obtained previously, given in Ref. 2 of hydrogen,
sulphur and nitrogen into the production process. Hence,
some assumptions related to the production were made.
For example, when discussing the hydrogen removal, the
change of the interfacial reaction area has not been
considered at all. This is due to the fact that it is not
possible to measure the true area during production.
Therefore, A is considered to be constant in equation (2).
Steel and slag compositions
The results with respect to slag and steel compositions
and temperatures are shown in Tables 2 and 3 respec-
tively. It can be seen that the contents of aluminium,
nitrogen, hydrogen and sulphur in the steel decreased
during vacuum degassing. Note also, some of the

Table 2 Steel composition and temperature data

First series Second series

Sample (steel) Al/wt-% H/ppm N/wt-% S/wt-% Otot/ppm Temp./uC Al/wt-% H/ppm N/wt-% S/wt-% Otot/ppm Temp./uC

BV(3) 0.10 6.8 N/A 0.0024 95 1671 0.05 8.5 0.02 0.0049 N/A 1669
V3 0.06 3.7 N/A 0.0019 10 1645 0.036 4.6 0.014 0.0044 21 1635
BV(6) N/A 8.7 0.017 0.0011 21 1650 0.07 8.0 0.021 0.0025 144 1635
V6 N/A 3.2 0.009 0.0008 10 1617 0.06 3.5 0.013 0.0018 21 1601
BV(9) 0.07 N/A 0.016 0.0015 36 1663 0.07 7.2 0.021 0.001 67 1636
V9 0.037 N/A N/A 0.001 9 1620 0.05 2.3 0.011 0.0008 12 1602
BV(15) 0.09 8.9 0.019 0.0022 77 1651 0.039 8.2 0.021 0.009 19 N/A
V15 0.05 2.4 0.010 0.0015 15 1603 0.012 2.5 0.013 0.0058 43 1629
BV(22) 0.06 8.7 0.017 0.0011 16 1653 0.08 8.2 0.019 0.002 31 1634
V22 0.03 2.5 0.008 0.0005 23 1589 0.03 1.3 0.009 0.0009 11 1591

Ironmaking and Steelmaking 2013 VOL 40 NO 3 201

Steneholm et al. Removal of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur from tool steel

3 Kinetics of hydrogen removal using first order reaction 4 Relative decrease in hydrogen content as function of
model vacuum degassing time

aluminium and nitrogen contents are missing due to
poor sample quality. From Table 3 it can be seen that
the sulphur content in the slag increases during vacuum
degassing. More specifically, the content varied between
0?1 and 0?38% after vacuum treatment. The average slag
composition before vacuum treatment was 44?8CaO–
14?0MgO–30?6Al2O3–10?6SiO2. Furthermore, the aver-
age slag composition after vacuum degassing was
41?4CaO–13?9MgO–31?5Al2O3–9?8SiO2.
The composition changes of the steel and the slag
show great consistency. Therefore, the values in Tables 2
and 3 were deemed to be so reliable so that they can be
used in the calculations for hydrogen, sulphur and
nitrogen below.
Hydrogen removal
Equation (5) was plotted using the hydrogen data in
Table 2 and the estimated equilibrium hydrogen con-
tents calculated using equation (4), with values from
Table 1. The results are shown in Fig. 3. It can be seen
that the overall rate constant for hydrogen is more or
less constant during the first 8–10 min of degassing.
According to previous work3 the dehydrogenation
process is very rapid and that the time of completion
of dehydrogenation process is 5–10 min.
Figure 4 illustrates the relative decrease in the hydro-
gen content as a function of the vacuum treatment time.
As is seen, almost 70% of the initial hydrogen has
been removed during the first 10 min. Thereafter, there
is only a slight of the hydrogen content with the vacuum
treatment time. The required limit of hydrogen content
in the final product is reached well within the opera-
tional time frame of 30 min of vacuum degassing. It has
also been stated by Bannenberg et al.11 that the de-
hydrogenation time can be of y10 min during normal
practice while reaching a value of 1?5 ppm. Therefore,
the current results support those of Bannenberg et al.11
Sulphur removal
The equilibrium sulphur concentration in molten steel
can be calculated if the sulphide capacity of the slag, the
oxygen activity, activity coefficient of sulphur in the steel
melt and temperature are known. In addition, it is
necessary to know the weights of slag and steel to carry
out the calculations.
The equilibrium sulphur distribution LS between slag
and metal can be expressed by the following equation
ð%SÞslag
log LS ~log
½%Smetal
935
~{ z1:375zlog CS zlog fS {log aO (9)
T
where (%S)slag and [%S]metal are the sulphur contents in
the slag and metal phases respectively. Furthermore, CS
is the sulphide capacity of the slag phase, fS is the
activity coefficient of sulphur in the metal phase and aO
is the oxygen activity in the steel melt.
In the present work, a model developed at KTH,4
ThermoSlag, was used for calculations of the sulphide
capacity. In addition, Wagner’s equation was applied for
estimation of the activity coefficient of sulphur. The
oxygen activity in the steel bath aO was calculated by
assuming that the dissolved aluminium and oxygen in
the steel bath and alumina in the top slag were in
equilibrium. The alumina activity in the slag phase was
calculated by the IRSID slag model.12,13 In the present

Table 3 Slag composition data/wt-%

First series Second series

Sample (slag) CaO MgO Al2O3 SiO2 S in slag CaO MgO Al2O3 SiO2 S in slag

BV(3) 48.4 12.7 30.0 8.9 0.17 39.2 14.7 28.3 17.7 0.094
V3 47.6 12.7 31.1 8.6 0.12 38.2 15.3 29.5 17.0 0.14
BV(6) 43.8 13.3 35.1 7.9 0.078 41.4 16.4 27.5 14.7 0.25
V6 42.1 14.6 36.4 6.8 0.1 40.4 16.1 28.4 15.0 0.38
BV(9) 46.7 12.3 30.1 10.9 0.16 46.7 14.1 29.0 10.2 0.11
V9 45.1 14.3 29.8 10.8 0.11 46.0 13.9 30.0 10.0 0.17
BV(15) 44.5 14.3 31.4 9.8 0.16 47.7 14.0 32.0 6.3 0.1
V15 45.8 13.9 29.3 11.0 0.097 46.2 13.8 32.2 7.8 0.094
BV(22) 43.8 13.3 35.1 7.9 0.078 45.9 14.8 27.6 11.7 0.056
V22 40.7 14.8 38.3 6.1 0.12 43.2 15.1 31.1 10.6 0.14

202 Ironmaking and Steelmaking 2013 VOL 40 NO 3


5 Calculated equilibrium content of sulphur as function
of measured sulphur content
6 Relative decrease in sulphur content as function of
vacuum degassing time
work, the thermodynamic software ThermoCalc with
the database SLAG2 was used.14 The necessary equa-
tions for calculation of the oxygen activity are shown in
Table 1.
Once the equilibrium sulphur distribution is known,
the equilibrium sulphur concentration in the molten
7 Kinetics of sulphur removal using first order reaction model: data are presented for following different slag amounts:
740, 1000 and 1400 kg
Steneholm et al. Removal of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur from tool steel
steel can be calculated through a mass balance. If it is
assumed that the mass of steel and slag are constant, the
following equation can be formulated
  
½%S0 msteelzð%S0 Þmslag~ %Seq msteelz %Seq mslag (10)
where [%S0] and [%Seq] are the sulphur concentrations in
the steel at time zero and equilibrium respectively. The
parameters (%S0) and (%Seq) are the sulphur concentra-
tions in the slag at time zero and equilibrium respec-
tively. Finally, msteel and mslag are the weights of slag and
steel respectively. Equation (10) can be rewritten as
follows
  Y ð%S0 Þz½%S0 
%Seq ~ (11)
YLS z1
where Y is the ratio between the weights of slag and steel
and LS is the equilibrium sulphur distribution, deter-
mined from equation (9).
The calculations of the equilibrium sulphur concen-
trations in the steel melt were done at three different slag
weights, namely 740, 1000 and 1500 kg. The results are
shown in Fig. 5, where the theoretical values are against
those determined experimentally. These show that the
equilibrium sulphur concentration in the steel in several
cases was higher than the experimentally determined
values. Overall, the data in Fig. 5 indicate that the
sulphur concentration in the steel is more or less close to
the equilibrium for all plant trials.
Figure 6 illustrates the relative decrease in the sulphur
content with the vacuum treatment time. The process of
desulphurisation leads to a removal of y30% of the
initial sulphur content in 10 min. In a previous study by
Hallberg,3 it was shown that the predicted necessary
desulfurisation time was 10–25 min. In the present
study, it appears necessary to desulphurise for 20 min
if the sulphur content is to reach a value which is ,50%
of the initial concentration.
Figure 7 illustrates the desulfurisation kinetics plotted
using equation (5) for three different amounts of slag
(740, 1000 and 1500 kg). The slopes given by the trend
lines indicate that if the sulphur content is reasonably
Ironmaking and Steelmaking 2013 VOL 40 NO 3 203
Steneholm et al. Removal of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur from tool steel
8 Kinetics of nitrogen removal using first and second order reaction models
the same for different heats, the slag amount does not
affect the desulphurisation kinetics: 0?0505 (740 kg),
0?0506 (1000 kg) and 0?0423 (1500 kg). It should be
pointed out that normally the slag amount varies
between 700 and 1000 kg. Hence, the case with
1500 kg represents an extreme case scenario. Note that
if the slag amount should be larger during normal
practice the results should, of course, be revised.
Nitrogen removal
In order to calculate the removal of nitrogen from the
steel bulk, equation (1) can be used. This is similar to
what was discussed in the case of hydrogen removal.
Here, the equilibrium content of nitrogen in the steel
melt %Neq was calculated using equation (4) and the
corresponding information given in Table 2 for nitro-
gen. In order to simplify the calculation it was assumed
that the partial pressure of nitrogen was equal to the
total pressure in each case, which is the same procedure
as that was used for the hydrogen case. The necessary
equations are shown in Table 1. Also, when calculating
the activity coefficients by using Wagner’s equation, the
required interaction parameters eiN were taken from a
compilation by Engh.5 Moreover, the standard Gibbs
free energy was taken from Hayes.6
Equation (5) was plotted using the nitrogen data in
Table 2 together with the estimated equilibrium nitrogen
contents from equation (4). Figure 8 shows the nitrogen
removal kinetics as a function of vacuum treatment
time. A first order equation was used to calculate the
nitrogen removal to confirm that the nitrogen removal
was only depending on the transport of nitrogen in the
bulk. In addition, data using a second order equation
are also presented in the figure. However, as can be seen
a second order rate (equation (6)) gave no observed
improvement. In addition, the resulting R2 values from
the straight line calculated from the measured values
where almost the same for the first and second order
equations, as seen in Fig. 8.
Figure 9 illustrates the relative decrease in nitrogen
during vacuum degassing. About 50% of the initial
nitrogen was removed during the first 10 min for the
studied steel grade. These results are similar as those
for the case of hydrogen refining shown in Fig. 4.
Moreover, it is clear that after 10 min of vacuum
204 Ironmaking and Steelmaking 2013 VOL 40 NO
degassing the nitrogen refining was more or less
negligible.
Oxygen and sulphur have a strong influence on the
kinetics of nitrogen removal. According to Refs. 15 and
16 the nitrogen removal is described by a first order
reaction when the oxygen and sulphur contents are
,80 ppm. Since the studied steel grade is an aluminium
killed steel grade, the oxygen activity is quite low during
vacuum degassing. More specifically, less than 461024
if the standard state is assumed to be a 1% hypotheti-
cal solution according to Beskow.17 This corresponds
to a maximum theoretical dissolved oxygen content of
y40 ppm. The sulphur content in the present trials was
also quite low. In addition, the initial sulphur content
was generally well ,0?0025%, which corresponds to a
sulphur activity of 0?0028 (assuming that the standard
state is a 1% hypothetical solution). Therefore, the
nitrogen removal can be described with a first order
reaction for the present steel grade, which is also in
reasonable agreement with the results in Fig. 8. It
should be mentioned that in the evaluation of Fig. 8,
one of the points deviated and has been removed (series
2, sample taken at 15 min) due to an unrealistically high
sulphur content.
For these specific plant conditions it was shown that it
was possible to use a first order to calculate the nitrogen
content. However, it is very important to keep in mind
that whenever another steel composition is considered in
9 Relative decrease in nitrogen content as function of
vacuum degassing time
3

the future, it might be necessary to use a second order
reaction model to calculate the removal of nitrogen from
steel. This is due to that elements such as oxygen and
sulphur content have a large influence on the reaction
kinetics.
Concluding remarks
Figure 7 indicates that the slag weight does not affect
the removal rate of sulphur. However, as seen the R2
values are 0?39 (740 kg), 0?53 (1000 kg) and 0?70
(1400 kg). These values are not so high, which may
imply that a first order reaction is not applicable for the
sulphur removal.
Experimental studies have been carried out by Battle
and Pehlke18 to determine the removal rate of nitrogen
at high oxygen and sulphur contents. For those cases,
the oxygen and sulphur levels were said to affect the
removal rate. However, in the present case the steel
contains low levels of oxygen (9–43 ppm) and sulphur
(0?0005–0?0058%) after vacuum degassing, as seen in
Table 2. In general, low levels of oxygen and sulphur are
found to influence the nitrogen removal in different
ways as discussed by different authors.16,18,19 However,
in this study the levels are well below the information
found in previous research, so no direct comparison can
be made. Note that the levels of total oxygen measured
for the studied heats are presented in previous work.2
Many studies imply that a mixed model may be used
to calculate the removal of nitrogen.15,20 However, as
seen in Fig. 8 the data in this study show that a first
order calculation approach is valid.
Normally, at this studied steel plant, the steel endures
a vacuum treatment and thereafter a floatation time.
Hence, with the knowledge obtained in this study, the
vacuum treatment time may be optimised with respect to
hydrogen, sulphur and nitrogen leaving the process
optimisation concerning inclusion characteristics to the
floatation period. As previous work has shown,2 the
levels of impurity elements are below the requirements at
a shorter time of vacuum treatment than what is
required to meet the demands on the inclusion content.
This indicates that the following process step (the final
stirring) may be an important step to obtain an inclusion
control for these specific steel grades.
Conclusions
In the present study the removal of hydrogen, nitrogen
and sulphur during vacuum degassing of a tool steel
grade (H13) in an ASEA-SKF ladle furnace was studied.
Slag and steel samples were collected before and after
vacuum treatment for 10 heats. Thereafter, the deter-
mined chemical compositions of steel and slag were used
Steneholm et al. Removal of hydrogen, nitrogen and sulphur from tool steel
to calculate the removal of sulphur, hydrogen and
nitrogen. For sulphur and hydrogen only first order
reaction models were considered. However, for nitrogen
both first order and second order kinetic models were
studied. The specific conclusions from the study may be
summarised as follows.
1. Hydrogen and nitrogen removal kinetics can be
described with first order reactions for the present steel
grade, as long as the sulphur content is ,0?003%.
2. After 10 min of vacuum degassing the hydrogen
and nitrogen removal is more or less finished for the
steel grade studied.
3. It is not possible to apply a first order reaction to
calculate the removal of sulphur. Instead, the sulphur
content for the studied steel grade seems to follow the
equilibrium sulphur content at all stages during the
degassing
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