INTRODUCTION

What is iron ore?

Iron, Fe, is known as rock-forming elements which it is one of the most abundant
where it make up 5% of the Earths crust. Iron ore can be described as rocks and
minerals where metallic iron can be extracted and are usually rich with iron oxides. It
can in many different colors such as dark grey, bright yellow, deep purple or rusty red.
Furthermore, ores have very high qualities of hematite or magnetite which are
different forms of iron ores where they have more than 60% iron content in them.
Figure below shows an example of hematite. Since hematite or magnetite are called
natural ore, this means that they can be directly fed into an equipment which is the
iron-making blast furnaces where the main use of the iron ore is to make pig iron
which is the main raw materials for the manufacturing of steel.( Wikipedia, 2016)
 Figure 1 : Hematite and iron ore

What is the use of iron ore?

Since iron ore is used to make pig iron which will be used in steel manufacture,
steel will be used for making pipes, cars, ships, engines, nails, in buildings and etc.
This shows that iron ore is a part of everybody live and to the modern world since 98%
of iron ore is used to make steel.

Iron and Steel Industry

Modern Iron Making Processes

In iron and steel industry, steel-making processes are divided into two types
which are primary and secondary steel-making where primary steel-making involves
the chemical reduction of iron ore or conversion of liquid iron from a basic oxygen
furnace (BOF) and steel scrap into steel through basic oxygen steel-making or direct
reduced iron in an electric arc furnace (EAF) while a secondary steel-making involves
refining crude steel before casting which normally done in ladles. (Wikipedia, 2016). B

Iron ore is mixed with coke and is heated to form an iron-rich clinker called sinter
where sintering is an important process in order to reduce the wastes and obtained
efficient raw material for iron manufacturing. Furthermore, the coke is produced from
selected grades of coal where the different grades of coal kept separately and will be
blended before being transfer into coke ovens for the process of being carbonized in
the ovens to become cokes. (steelconstruction.info, 2016)
 Figure 1 : Sinter Plant and Coke Oven

The cokes from the coke ovens will be cooled and graded before they are being
used in the blast furnace. In addition, coal gas are collected and reuse as fuel in the
manufacturing process while the by-products produced which are tar, benzole and
sulfur are extracted to be further refined.

Process in Blast Furnace

Next, coke, iron ore and sinter are fed into a blast furnace with the presence of
limestone where hot air rich in oxygen is injected through nozzles called tuyeres at the
base of furnace. Blast fans the heat in the furnace into white-hot intensity so that iron
in the iron ore and sinter will be melted out to form pools of molten metals at the
bottom of the furnace.
 Figure 2 : Blast Furnace

The impurities and metal rocks from the iron ore and sinter will combined with the
limestone that will from a liquid slag that will floats at the top of the molten iron. The
important part of iron making is the process is continuous and when the desired
amount of molten iron has accumulated in the blast furnace, it will be tapped off into
ladles for the steel-making process.

The Process of Steel-making

Primary Steel-Making
 Basic oxygen steel-making is a process where carbon-rich molten pig iron is
manufactured into steel. This process differ between basic oxygen furnace (BOF) and
electric arc furnace (EAF). Modern furnaces or basic oxygen furnace (BOF) will
convert the molten pig iron into steel where water-cooled oxygen lance is lowered into
the furnace and pure oxygen is blown into the the metals at high pressure.
(steelconstruction.info, 2016)

Figure 3 : Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF)

Figure 4 : Steps in BOF

 Meanwhile, for electric arc furnace (EAF), is the manufacture of steel from scrap
or direct reduced iron melted electric arcs where the furnace consist of a circular bath
with movable roof where 3 graphite electrodes can be raised or lowered. During the
process, steel scrap will be charged into the furnace and a powerful electric current
will pass through the charge where an arc will be created and thus heat that is
generated will melt the scrap.

Figure 5 : Electric Arc Furnace (EAF)

 Figure 6 : Steps in EAF

Secondary Steel-Making

In this process, it involves the treatment of the molten steel produced from
basic oxygen furnace (BOF) and electric arc furnace (EAF) where all the molten
metal is tapped into ladles. The purpose of the treatment is to adjust the steel
composition by adding or removing some elements, removing harmful and
unwanted gases such as hydrogen as well as manipulating the temperature and
the environment of the production.

Emissions from Iron and Steel Industry

Sinter Plant :
 In sinter plants, emission of gases that can cause pollution are produced from
handling raw material, windbox exhaust, discharged end, cooler and cold screen. In
windbox exhaust, the emissions produced include iron oxide, sulfure oxide,
carbonaceous compounds, aliphatic hydrocarbons and chlorides. While in discharged
end, the emissions produces are iron oxides and calcium oxides.

Blast Furnace :

Main source of blast furnace emissions is from the casting process where the
emissions of particulates are produced from molten iron and slag contact will the air
above their surface. The emissions that are produced during the casting process are
iron oxides, magnesium oxide and carbonaceous compounds where they are emitted
as particulate.

Steel-Making :

In basic oxygen furnace (BOF), the emissions occurs during the oxygen blow
period where the compound emitted is iron oxides (usually heavy metals and fluorides
are present). Furthermore, tapping emissions will include iron oxides, sulfur oxides
and other metallic oxides where it will depend on the grade of scrap metal used. In
additions, emissions from hot metal transfer will be iron oxides.

In electric arc furnace (EAF), processes that will produced during EAF
steel-making process are melting and refining, charging scrap, tapping steel and
dumping slag. In melting, the emission emitted during the process is iron oxide while
in refining, calcium oxide is emitted from the slag. Furthermore, iron and other metallic
oxide from alloy in scrap metals are usually emitted during charging scrap while iron
oxides is emitted during dumping of slag and tapping.
Justification Of Control Devices For The Production Emission Of Iron
Ore

The control devices chosen to control the emission of gases that are harmful to
the environment are baghouse filter and scrubber.

Baghouse Filter

Advantages Disadvantages

Versatile and flexible for many Limited by high temperatures and

applications. corrosive chemicals.

Extremely high efficiencies for PM

Not well suited for very high dust loads.
collection, especially for small particles.

Cost-effective when properly designed

Requires a lot of maintenance.
and maintained.

Modular design for convenient Large footprint requiring large floor

assembly. areas.

Can collect other pollutants with certain

Potential for fire or explosion.
fabric coating additions.
Scrubber

Advantages Disadvantages

Many types of particulate wet scrubbers They require make-up water to replace
can provide high efficiency control of the water that vaporized into the gas
particulate matter. stream and lost to purge liquid and sludge
removed from the scrubber system.

They are often able to simultaneously Generates a waste stream that must be
collect particulate matter and gaseous treated properly
pollutants.

Can often be used on sources that have

potentially explosive gases or particulate
matter.

They are compact and can often be

retrofitted into existing plants with very
limited space.

Reference

"Steel Manufacture". Steelconstruction.info. N.p., 2016. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.

Retrieved from http://www.steelconstruction.info/Steel_manufacture
 "Steelmaking". En.wikipedia.org. N.p., 2016. Web. 9 Dec. 2016. Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steelmaking

Iron and Steel Production. U.S Environmental Protection Agency. 2016. Web. 9
Dec. 2016.

Retrieved from https://www3.epa.gov/ttnchie1/ap42/ch12/final/c12s05.pdf

"Iron Ore". En.wikipedia.org. N.p., 2016. Web. 9 Dec. 2016. Retrieved from
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_ore