Choice of technological regimes of a blast furnace operation with injection of hot reducing gases

Injection rate of fossil fuels is limited because of drop in the flame temperature in the raceway and problems in the deadman region and the cohesive zone. The next step for obtaining a considerable coke saving, a better operation in the deadman as an well as increase in blast furnace productivity and minimizing the environmental impact due to a decrease in carbon dioxide emission would be injection by tuyeres of hot reducing gases (HRG) which are produced by low grade coal gasification or top gas regenerating. Use of HRG in combination with high pulverized coal inyection PCI rate and oxygen enrichment in the blast could allow to keep and to increase the competitiveness of the blast furnace process. Calculations using a mathematical model show that the HRG injection in combination with pulverized coal (PC) and enriching blast with oxygen can provide an increase in PC rate up to 300-400 kg/tHM and a rise in the furnace productivity by 40-50 %. Blast furnace operation with full oxygen blast (100 % of process oxygen with the exception for the hot blast) is possible when HRG is injected.