DuMiCo - Dust minimisation and control at the blast furnace

Initial situation:

Increasing need to use low quality raw materials and higher PCI rates often lead to process instabilities and increased dust formation at the blast furnace (BF). At the same time there is limited knowledge of amounts, characteristics, reasons and mechanisms of dust formation​. Furthermore, dust carries information about lower BF shaft processes, but this information is not used yet.

Project targets:

  • Introduce innovative and online dust monitoring techniques for rapid identification of dust amount and characteristic​s
  • Establish a link between operational conditions and dust amount and characteristics​
  • Derive knowledge of fundamental dust formation mechanisms​
  • Develop and validate operational strategies for disturbance mitigation and dust control

Innovative approaches:

  • Characterisation of iron content as well as the total solids content in gas washing water with BFI magnetic sensor MAGS
  • Characterisation of salt content of BF dust with BFI dissolved solids sensor DISSO
  • Correlation of operational conditions to BF dust generation
  • Dust minimisation and control for improved process stability
  • BFI developed MAGS and DISSO sensors to monitor dust amount and salt content of BF dust online. Furthermore, clear correlations between top gas temperature profiles (SOMA), dust output and charging programs were found.

Benefits for the industry:

  • BFI MAGS and DISSO Sensors for online monitoring of dust formation providing characteristic dust fingerprints​
  • Operational control strategies to decrease disturbances in the BF process and dust output with the top gas​
  • More stable operation and reduced dust amount will decrease energy demand, CO2 emission and losses of C and Fe​
  • Improved flexibility of raw material selection

Publications:
Further information about the project: DuMiCo

The project is funded by the European Union, Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS). Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or of project management agency REA. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.

Project duration: 07/2017 – 06/2021

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