Abstract
A transient two-dimensional mathematical model is developed to study the influence of fuel type and operation parameters on combustion and NOx emission during the iron ore sintering process. The model was validated by comparing the model predictions with sintering pot test data. The predictions show reasonable agreement with the averaged values of the test data. In addition to the conventional sintering process, this model can also predict new processes such as flue gas recirculation, gas fuel injection, and fuel layered distribution. The simulation results show that the fuel NOx is the main part of the NOx emission during sintering, and thermal NOx forms a very little part. The produced NOx can be reduced not only by coke but also by CO around coke particles, with reduction proportions of 50% and 10%, respectively. Two types of coke A and B were compared. With Coke A as solid fuel and consumption of 3.8%, the NOx emission was 320 ppm. Increasing the replacement of Coke A with Coke B, the NOx emission was decreased, being decreased by 28.13% to 230 ppm with the replacement proportion of 50%. When only Coke B was used, the NOx emissions could be lowered by 53.13% to 150 ppm. Decreasing the particle size from 1.6 mm to 1.2 mm led the NOx emission to be increased by 10.93% from 320 ppm to 355 ppm. With Coke A as the only solid fuel, increasing the fuel ratio to 4.2% led the NOx emission to be increased by 9.38% to 350 ppm; increasing the oxygen content of inlet air from 21% to 30% led the NOx emission to be increased by 15.00% from 320 ppm to 368 ppm.
Highlights
Iron ore sinter constitutes up to 70–85% of the total ferrous burden in the blast furnace process, which remains the major source of iron production worldwide (1.2 billion tons in 2016)
NOx emission can be affected by fuel properties and operation conditions during the iron ore sintering process [5]
In the early stage of combustion, the temperature of the coke surface was low, and the conversion ratio of coke-N was accelerated around the coke particles under the condition of high oxygen concentration, and the combustion of the coke particles was controlled by the chemical reaction
Summary
Iron ore sinter constitutes up to 70–85% of the total ferrous burden in the blast furnace process, which remains the major source of iron production worldwide (1.2 billion tons in 2016). From the perspective of environmental protection, iron ore sintering is one of the main pollution sources in steelworks. Since the NOx , SOx , dust, and dioxins generated from sintering are about 50% of the total emissions of iron and steel enterprises, it is important to understand these in order to develop new energy-saving and environment-protecting sintering technologies for reducing pollution emissions. New technologies for reducing NOx emissions, such as biomass fuel [1], fuel gas injection [2], and flue gas recirculation [3,4], have been applied in some sintering plants, there is even greater. NOx emission can be affected by fuel properties and operation conditions during the iron ore sintering process [5]. Over the past few years, quite a few studies have focused on the NOx emission of iron ore sintering. Zhou et al [7]
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