CASE STUDY ON THRESHOLD PROBLEM

Sponge Iron Production Process

Process description

This is the case study of typical coal based sponge iron plant of 500 tonne per day
capacity. The process flow diagram (PFD) of the sponge iron process is shown in Fig. 1.
Different streams in the PFD are assigned individual number and henceforth each stream
will be referred through its respective number. Detailed operation of this plant is
discussed in the work of Prasad et al. [2011]. The operating parameters for this process
are shown in Table 1.

11
Water 13 Water
128447 m3/h 15 Kiln Feed 1 Total air 2
waste gas
(+1mbar) (+1mbar) 3
Waste gas
EC 10
Dusty gas
ABC
ROTARY KILN (RK) 4

16 Flue gas (900◦C) (1020◦C)

(-1mbar)
Air
Slinger
DSC coal 5
12 6
CH

(-5mbar)
Water Hot
ESP Dust: Dust: Dust: 1 RC Water
0.6 T/h 4.4 T/h T/hr
Clean
gas 8 9
Wet scraper (WS) Sponge
7
18 17 Dust 2 iron
Dust 1 14

EC: Evaporating Chamber, ESP: Electrostatic Precipitator, CH: Chimney, RK: Rotary kiln
ABC: After Burning Chamber, DSC: Dust Settling Chamber, WS: Wet Scrapper, RC: Rotary cooler

Fig. 1 Process flow diagram of the sponge iron process with material and energy balanced data
 Table 1 Operating parameters of the process under consideration

Stream No. T,C Mass Flow, t/h Stream No. T,C Mass Flow, t/h
1 30 44.59 10 900 98.93
2 30 83.913 11 30 12
3 30 13.516 12 30 13.516
4 30 2.816 13 1050 119.046
5 30 7.73 14 80 6
6 1020 23.788 15 30 45
7 110 23.788 16 250 163.446
8 30 750 17 220 5.5
9 34.74 750 18 220 157.946

Data extraction
The aim of this work is to modify the flow sheet of the existing system to reduce energy
consumption used per tonne production of sponge iron. The first step to achieve this aim
is to extract the required data from the process flow sheet, shown in Fig. 1. These data are
summarized in Table 2. The minimum temperature difference, Tmin, for this case is
50C.

Table 2: Stream data for the process

Steam no. Stream name Type Ts (C) Tt (C) CP (kW/C)
6+7 h1 Hot 1020 110 4.545
14 h2 Hot 80 30 1.461
17 h3 Hot 220 30 1.386
18 h4 Hot 220 152.63 50.016
2 c1 Cold 30 170 24.069
18 c2 Cold 60 142.7 50.016
+ used for streams which are considered together for heat integration

The data shown in Table 2 is extracted with a purpose to utilize the heat available with
waste gas (Stream No. 18). In this data waste gas is used for air preheating from 30C to
170C and then cold gas is used to cool kiln outlet stream (Stream No. 6+7). Therefore,
in Table 2 waste gas (Stream No. 18) is considered twice: initially as hot stream and then
as cold stream.

Targeting
The composite curve for this case is shown in Fig. 2 where hot and cold utilties are 0 and
336 kW, respectively. As one utility is zero it is the case of threshold problem. It
indicates that possible recovery of heat within the process is 7506 kW.
 DT=50.00C, Qh=0, Qc=335.9
1100

1000
Hot Composite Possible heat
900 Cold Composite
recovery
800 within the
process
Temperature [C]

700
Hot [7506 kW]
600
composite Cold
500
curve composite
400 curve
300

200

100

0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000
Enthalpy [kW ]

Fig. 2 Composite curve

Designing

The heat exchanger network (HEN) is designed for this case and shown in Fig. 3. While
designing the HEN streams h2 and h3 are not considered as these are dust streams and
may foul the surface of heat exchanger considerably and make it inoperable in a short
span of time. Fig. 3 shows that only two heat exchangers are required in the HEN.
Exchanger-1 of load of 2951.6 kW is used to preheat air (Stream c2) from 30C to 170C
using waste gas (Stream h4) and exchanger-2 of load of 4136.2 kW is employed to cool
kiln outlet (Stream h1) using waste gas (Stream h2). Fig. 3 does not include any heater
due to zero hot utility. Moreover, cooler is also not used in the design as cooling is
required by streams h2 and h3 which are already excluded from design.

It is should be noted from Fig. 3 that total recovery of heat in the process is only 7087.8
kW instead of 7506 kW shown in Fig. 2. This fact is illustrated as: due to the preheating
of air by waste gas the coal consumption has dropped down to 20.239 t/h. It should be
noted that earlier (in existing system) the heat required for air preheating was taken from
coal itself. In fact, the coal consumption figure reported above is computed based on the
primary amount of air which is 83.913 t/h, as shown in Table 1. However, when the
consumption of coal drops the quantity of air required to burn it also drops. So the
solution of this problem requires trial and error approach. Based on the trial and error
method the final amount of coal required is estimated to be 19.195 t/h and the
corresponding air requirement comes out to be 74.158 t/h. Further, due to decrease in the
amount of air the waste gas amount will also decrease to 145.665 t/h in comparison to
earlier figure of 157.946 t/h as shown in Table 1. A fresh computation shows that with
the revised amount of air as well as waste gas, value of CP for air and waste gas also
decreases. Consequently, total load of exchanger-1 also drops down; however, that for
exchanger-2 remains unchanged. Thus, after designing recovery of heat in the process is
decreased than that has been targeted through composite curve shown in Fig. 2.

Pinch CP, kW/◦C

1020◦ 110◦
h1 2 4.545

220◦ 155.4◦
h4 1 46.127

146.6◦ 60◦
c2 46.127
4136.2
170◦ 30◦
c1 21.271
2951.6

Fig. 3 Designing of HEN

Modified process flow diagram

The modified PFD for sponge iron process based on HEN is shown in Fig. 4 where grey
lines shows the ducts to carry waste gas from chimney to exchanger-1 (shown through G-
G HX in Fig. 4), from exchanger-1 to exchanger-2 (shown through G-S HX in Fig. 4) and
from exchanger-2 to chimney. This heat integration based modification causes coal
consumption to be reduced by 11.6% in comparison to the existing system.
 Total air
74.244 T/h
30 C 
15 13 11
Water Kiln G-G 154.7C 2
145.773 45 T/h Feeding 218.6C  HX
Waste Water
1 3
T/h 168.6 C  Air
waste gas  16 gas at 12 T/h 
1050 C  ABC
EC Flue 4
RK
gas
Air Air
250C  DSC
Slinger
12 coal
1020 C
10 5
18
ECP
WS
6
CH

220 C  Dust 1
Dust 2 17 6 T/h 14
5 T/h
149.6C  G-S 60 C
HX  

Sponge iron
 New heat exchanger  Duct At 110 C 7

Fig. 4 Modified PFD for sponge iron process

References

1. Prasad A.K., Prasad R.K., Khanam S., Design modifications for energy conservation
of sponge iron plants. J. Thermal Sci. Eng. Appl. 3, 015001-1-015001-11 (2011).