International Conference on Applied Energy 2019

Aug 12-15, 2019, Västerås, Sweden

Paper ID: 9

PROCESS SIMULATION OF BLAST FURNACE OPERATION WITH BIOMASS

SYNGAS INJECTION FOR CLEAN PRODUCTION

Ruiqi Wang, Long Jiang*, Yaodong Wang, Anthony Paul Roskilly

Sir Joseph Swan Centre for Energy Research, Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
Greek Letters
The modern steel industry depends largely on blast
furnace route to produce hot metal. Massive amount of τ Replacement ratio, kgcoke·tara-1
CO2 is discharged in the blast furnace process through Subscripts
utilising carbon-based reducing agents e.g. coke to
extract iron from iron ore. It is extensively acknowledged ara Auxiliary reducing agent
that renewable and biomass-generated reducing agents inj Injection
are gathering momentum to replace part of coke in mit Mitigated
ironmaking applications. Syngas produced from biomass ref Reference
gasification is mainly composed of hydrogen and carbon
monoxide. In this paper, the model of blast furnace
operation with biomass syngas injection is established by 1. INTRODUCTION
using Aspen Plus software. The simulation results Current iron and steel production depends
demonstrate that the minimal coke consumption with substantially on blast furnace (BF) process which
syngas injection could be 320 kg·tHM-1 when an injection produces about 70% of total world steel production [1].
rate is about 60 kg·tHM-1, while the coke consumption The goal of this process is to reduce the iron oxides into
could be reduced to 316.5 kg·tHM-1 when 50 kg·tHM-1 of iron by the use of carbon and hydrogen related reducing
hydrogen is injected. With the optimal syngas injection agents i.e. coke, coal, oil, natural gas and hot reducing
rate, CO2 emissions of the blast furnace can be reduced gases, etc. [2]. The carbon in these fossil-based energies
by 40.8% when compared with that of typical operation is finally released in the form of CO2 to the environment.
when coke rate is 385 kg·tHM-1. BF is the most energy-intensive step in the integrated
steelmaking process and generates large quantities of
Keywords: blast furnace, biomass, syngas, hydrogen, CO2 [3]. Thus a number of production processes or
process simulation modifications of existing ones to improve BF efficiency
and reduce emissions have been developed [4]. One
alternative solution that offers great potential is to use
NONMENCLATURE renewable biomass-generated reductants that could
replace part of coke in BF.
Abbreviations Thermochemical conversion technologies make it
AUXM Auxiliary Material possible to produce solid, liquid and gaseous biomass-
BF Blast Furnace based reducing agents. Charcoal from slow pyrolysis
HM Hot Metal could replace pulverized coal (PC) injection in the BF. To
PC Pulverized Coal obtain the same combustibility of biochar with that of
RA Reducing Agent the coal, a longer raceway or smaller particle size is
required [5]. Bio-oil from fast pyrolysis of heterotrophic
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 11th Int. Conf. on Applied Energy (ICAE2019).
Copyright © 2019 ICAE
microalgae has nearly comparable heating value to 3. METHODOLOGY
fossil-based heavy oil, which has high quality for use in
3.1 Aspen model
metallurgical purposes [2, 6]. Biomass gasification has
been perceived as an promising process for producing The input stream parameters of BF model in Aspen
syngas and synthetic natural gas which are rich in Plus are listed in Table 1. Fig 2 shows the flowsheet of the
hydrogen, carbon monoxide and methane [7]. The main BF process. Solids method is used to calculate the
requirement of syngas utilisation in ironmaking properties of all the components. All the components
applications is its sufficient reducibility. Although using operate under steady-state conditions.
syngas from biomass gasification has been investigated
in numerous work [8, 9], the process analysis of biomass Table 1. Input stream parameters of BF model in Aspen Plus.
syngas behavior in BF has rarely been reported. Parameter Component
In this paper, biomass-based syngas is used as the Ore Fe2O3, SiO2, Al2O3, MgO, MnO
auxiliary reducing agent during the BF process. The Auxiliary material CaCO3
savings in the coke consumption and reduction of CO2 Coke C, N, H, O, S
emissions are examined. Also the performance of Pulverized coal C, N, H, O, S
biomass syngas as an auxiliary reducing agent in BF is Hot air N2, O2
compared with that of hydrogen. Oxygen O2
Water H2O
2. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION Syngas H2, CO
Fig 1 indicates the general schematic diagram of BF
operation with biomass syngas injection. The gasification Decomposition
technologies of biomass can be divided into allothermal,
autothermal and entrained flow gasifiers [8]. The
entrained flow gasifiers technology is chosen in this Preheater
Raw material
work, in which the ratio of hydrogen and carbon
monoxide in the syngas is 1. The syngas produced from BF1
biomass gasification is required to be cleaned and Separator 2
purified. Afterwards, biomass syngas could be Flash1
introduced into the BF by injecting through tuyere. BF2 Flash2
Hydrogen will also be used separately for performance
comparison.
Flash3 BF3
Atmosphere

Cowper
BF4 Flash 4

CO2 Circular absorbed Flash5

and released CO2 CO2
BF5
Iron ore Tuyere Heater
Syngas

Biomass Gasification Separator 1

Hydrogen
Biomass- Limestone
generated
Fig 2 Flowsheet of the BF model in Aspen Plus.
CO
3.2 Performance evaluation
Fossil-based
To evaluate the reduction of coke consumption and
Coke mitigation of CO2 emissions when using biomass syngas
Fig 1 Schematic diagram of BF operation with biomass syngas in the BF process, an exemplified case [10] that considers
injection. a common BF operation using coke and PC injection is

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 1
used for comparison. The process parameters of the . This could be attributed to the increased amount of
reference case are listed in Table 2. Meanwhile, to assess hydrogen with the increment of syngas. When injecting
the performance of biomass syngas, pure hydrogen as an pure hydrogen into BF, less coke can be replaced per
auxiliary reducing agent is simulated in the model. Since injected amount of hydrogen for an injection rate larger
coke is the main investigated target in BF process, other than 20 kg·tHM-1. Thus it reveals that low injection rates
issues, e.g. iron capacity and quality are not concerned. provide a better result to save the coke.

Table 2. Process parameters of the reference case [10]. 400

Parameters Value Syngas

Mass of coke injected (kg⋅tHM-1)

Hydrogen
Coke consumption 385 kg·tHM-1 380
PC injection 112 kg·tHM-1
Amount of hot air 1045 Nm3·tHM-1 360
Amount of oxygen 100 Nm3·tHM-1
CO in BF top gas 24.5 kg·tHM-1 340
CO2 emissions 1145.4 kg·tHM-1
320
The replacement ratio τ is used to describe the
change of the coke rate resulting from using a certain 300
amount of auxiliary reducing agent [4], which can be 0 20 40 60
expressed as Equation (1): Mass of reducing agent injected (kg⋅tHM-1)
∆𝑚𝑚coke 𝑚𝑚ref,coke − 𝑚𝑚coke Fig 3 Coke rate when injecting reducing agents at different
𝜏𝜏 = = (1) compositions.
∆𝑚𝑚ara ∆𝑚𝑚ara
The specific auxiliary reducing agent demand per
mitigation of CO2 emissions can be evaluated as Equation 2.4
(2): Syngas
Raplacement ratio (kgcoke⋅kgara-1)

𝑚𝑚inj,ara 2.0 Hydrogen

𝑚𝑚mit,ara = (2)
𝑚𝑚ref,CO2 − 𝑚𝑚CO2
1.6
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
1.2
Fig 3 shows the change of coke rate when the mass
of syngas injected ranges from 0 kg·tHM-1 to 60 kg·tHM-1. It
0.8
can be observed that the coke rate decreases with the
increase of injected syngas. The optimal coke rate of 320
0.4
kg·tHM-1 is achieved at an injection rate of 60 kg·tHM-1. Pure
hydrogen as a reducing agent could have a superior 10 20 30 40 50 60
ability to replace coke. Also worth noting that a Mass of reducing agent injected (kg⋅tHM-1)
significant reduction of coke is found when the hydrogen Fig 4 Replacement ratio when injecting reducing agents at
is injected from 10 kg·tHM-1 to 40 kg·tHM-1, whereas the different compositions.
coke rate tends to be constant after 40 kg·tHM-1. The
minimal coke consumption is 316.5 kg·tHM-1 when an Fig 5 shows the resulting CO2 emissions of on-site BF
injection rate of hydrogen is 50 kg·tHM-1. This is mainly process in terms of injecting different reducing agents.
because higher injection of hydrogen requires additional CO2 emissions can be continuously decreased from
oxygen to maintain a proper adiabatic flame 1076.3 kg·tHM-1 to 678.5 kg·tHM-1 by increasing the
temperature. When the hydrogen injection is larger than injection rate of syngas. The result can be reduced by
40 kg·tHM-1, the oxygen content is not enough in BF, which 40.8% compared to that of operation from the reference
leads to no extra reducing reaction by hydrogen. case when the coke rate is 385 kg·tHM-1. The hydrogen in
Fig 4 illustrates the influence of different reducing syngas plays a main role on the mitigation of CO2
agents on coke rate by using the replacement ratio. It is emissions. Similar to the trend of coke ratio when pure
indicated that more coke could be saved when injection hydrogen as a reducing agent, on-site CO2 emissions will
rate of syngas increases from 10 kg·tHM-1 to 40 kg·tHM-1, change slightly when the feed rate of hydrogen is larger
while the replacement ratio varies slightly after 40 kg·tHM- than 40 kg·tHM-1. This could be also because of the low

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efficient reducing ability of hydrogen at a higher injection emissions of BF can be reduced by 40.8% when
rate in BF. compared with that of typical operation. Although pure
1200 hydrogen has a superior ability to save coke and reduce
Syngas CO2 emissions, the higher injection of hydrogen could
also result in an unsteady result. A more detailed analysis
On-site CO2 emissions (kg⋅tHM-1)

Hydrogen
1000 could be our future work.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
800 This research was supported CCSInSupply funded by
Engineering and Physical Science Research Council of the
UK and National Natural Science Foundation of China
600
under contract number (51606118).

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5. CONCLUSIONS
This study aims to investigate the performance of
injecting biomass syngas as an auxiliary reducing agent
into BF. The minimal coke consumption with syngas
injection could be 320 kg·tHM-1 when an injection rate is
60 kg·tHM-1. With the optimal syngas injection rate, CO2

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