REPORT ON BLAST FURNACE 3, JSW BELLARY

Introduction
A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace that is used for the smelting
of ores in order to produce industrial metals and its alloys, generally iron. In a
blast furnace the material which is the ore and the flux is fed in from the top of
the furnace and a hot stream of air, usually rich in oxygen is fed in through the
bottom of the furnace. Due to this a set of reactions takes place and we finally
get the molten metal and the slag at the bottom of the furnace which is then
collected.
The blast furnace which we visited was blast furnace no. 3 in JSW Bellary. It is
the largest blast furnace In Asia. There are 4 blast furnaces in JSW. No. 1 and 2
are smaller in size and are similar in construction and no. 3 and 4 are larger in
size and similar in construction.
Blast furnace 3

Here it is a thumb rule that if we require 1 ton of products we require 1.7 tons
of raw material. Here the raw materials required are iron bearing materials
and fuel. The iron bearing materials are iron ore, sinter, pellets. In the ore, 67%
is iron and the remaining 33% is unwanted materials. And the iron in the ore is
present as oxides so we must eliminate it and get pure iron. Now in order to
separate this oxygen from iron we need some external agent. This external
agent is carbon. Carbon as a great affinity towards oxygen. Thus it helps in the
reduction of heamatite ore. This carbon is present in the form of coke.
The blast furnace column is 103m long. In this region the reactions take place.
Up to 23m of process zone is filled with 4000 tonnes of material. In this 4000
tonnes, for every 1000 tonnes of raw material 105 tonnes is coke and 5.5
tonnes of flux is added. A blast furnace can be compared to a human’s
digestive system. It cannot process anything you give it. Here the iron bearing
materials should be in the size range of 10-40mm and coke should be in the
range of 35mm to 45mm. This is maintained so that we can achieve highest
permeability. This means that reaction will take place with a very high
efficiency. Also the hot air which is pumped in must penetrate 4000 tonnes of
raw materials. So it is imperative that the size range is maintained. The driving
rate and process time of the iron production is dependent on the amount of
oxygen you can pump in per unit time. There are two forward axial
compressors that help in pumping of air. These are also called as blowers. It
sucks in air at 1 bar pressure and compresses it to 4 bar in four stages.
There are 8 bunkers in which the coke for blast furnace 3 is stored. There are
another two series of bunkers for iron ore, sinter, pellets and minor fluxes. The
area where the material is received, processed and made ready before it is fed
into the furnace is called the Stockhouse.
Optimization is of utmost importance. We must try and decrease the amount if
coke used as it is 20 times more expensive than iron ore. For this a heated
stream of air is used. It is preheated to a temperature of 1200 degree celcius.
This is made possible by the use of heat exchangers. This air is then fed into
the furnace through 36 equally spaced openings. Now because of the excessive
temperatures in the furnace, the temperature of the air increases from 1200 to
2000 degree celcius. Due to this there is a very large increase in the volume of
air. Thus the shape of the furnace must be optimized. So the cross section at
the top is small and it gradually increases. Later it becomes cylindrical and then
it reduces again.
The main gas produced is carbon monoxide. Initially carbon di oxide is
produced but due to high temperatures, it reacts and it gets reduced to carbon
monoxide. There is a volume increase due to this reaction and so the shape of
the furnace is as described above. Now the gas is collected by pipelines and it
has to be purified. There is also a lot of dust that is produced. This is primarily
removed by cyclonic effects and it is also removed by scrubbers and water jets.
Then the clean gas is used for energy recovery. The gas has a pressure of
around 1.2bar. Now this gas is subjected to a differential pressure across a
turbine and the rotation of this turbine is used to produce 13MW od power.
The iron that is got in the end contains 4.5%C, 0.5%Si etc. The slag and pig iron
has different densities. Both these molten forms are collected in the bottom of
the furnace in a portion called the hearth. Because of this density difference,
they can be easily separated my some mechanical means. The molten pig iron
is later collected in huge ladles of capacity 380 tons. Later this pug iron is taken
for further processing and purification. Later the slag which is formed is
quenched with water. We require 8 tons of water to quench 1 ton of slag.
Later this slag is converted to cement. Now the steam which is formed due to
quenching of slag is also used in energy recovery processes.
Now the pig iron is in the cast iron region. If we have to convert it into steel
region we have to decrease the carbon content. This is done by injecting
oxygen at some X bar pressure into the molten pig iron such that the carbon
reacts with the oxygen and converts in to carbon di oxide. The % of C is varied
by calculating the amount of oxygen required and the time of blowing. Now in
order to make nickel steel, chromium steel etc. we have to subject it to
secondary steel making process. All these processes are done when the iron is
in liquid form. The pig iron has 92% purity.
Filling of the ladle takes 40min. There are 4m long openings at the bottom of
the furnace. These are called tap holes. Once these are opened, it takes 40min
for one 380ton ladle to be filled.
If we consider the charge has been put in to the furnace at some time, it takes
five hours to get the final product. Usually it is a 24hour process. The amount
of iron got depends on the driving rate of the furnace. If any change is made to
the driving rate, it takes 4-6 hours for us to see the effect. In one day
considering a moderate driving rate, around 9000tons of hot metal is
produces. Also 4000tons of slag is produced.
There are changes that are being made continuously to the driving rate of the
blast furnace. For example the oxygen required for the reactions is got from
the atmospheric air. But the density of air changes as the day progresses. Thus
the oxygen values changes from min to min. Thus an extensive feedback
system is required to maintain the blast furnace.
Post processing of pig iron