Optimisation of the blast furnace burden based on its primary slag formation behaviour

The iron ore consumption doubled several times due to the rapid development of ironmaking industry in China, resulting in the worse quality of iron ores in the past decade. Therefore, the efficient utilisation of poor quality iron ore resources is of great importance for the sustainable development of ironmaking industry. In this work, a new method for optimisation of blast furnace burdens was studied based on the primary slag formation behaviour because it has significant influence on the formation of the cohesive zone. The results showed that there was obvious interaction between sinter and acid iron ores at high temperature, and the primary slag formation behaviour was clearly improved by the high temperature interaction. The poor quality lump ore could be utilised together with high basicity sinter and self-fluxed pellet to enhance the high temperature interaction. Besides, increasing CaO and MgO content in blast furnace burdens would further improve their primary slag formation behaviour and the performance of cohesive zone.