Experimental investigation on the optimal carbon/hydrogen ratio for developing an iron bath reactor with H₂-C mixture reduction-II

¹ Shanghai Key Laboratory of Modern Metallurgy & Materials Processing, Shanghai University, China
e-mail: zb11111@shu.edu.cn
² Baoshan Iron and Steel Corporation, China

Received: 23 August 2011
Accepted: 10 July 2012

Abstract

The basic idea of H₂-C mixture reduction reflects the advantages of hydrogen for fast reaction and low heat absorption in a smelting reduction reactor where hydrogen is used as the main reducing agent and carbon as the main heat generator on purpose to cut down the total energy consumption and CO₂ emission. This work aimed at the experimental investigation of the optimal carbon/hydrogen ratio, a key parameter of iron oxide reduction with mixture reductive agents of carbon and hydrogen. Experiments were carried out using a pure Al₂O₃ crucible which was placed in a tubular furnace for high temperature. Two investigation methods were adopted: one was injecting an acetylene/hydrogen mixture reducing gas into molten iron oxides, and the other was blowing hydrogen into an iron bath during continuous feeding of fine ore mixing solid carbon. Parameters such as the apparent de-oxidation rate and utilization ratio of reductive agents were calculated from content analysis of the exhaust gas after dust removal and drying. In the experiments the highest total de-oxidation rate and satisfactory apparent utilization ratio of hydrogen were obtained under conditions with temperatures of 1823 K and the carbon/hydrogen ratio in the region of 0.5:1 to 1:1.