Briquets for washing blast furnaces

Periodic washing of the hearth of a blast furnace by charging hard-to-reduce iron-bearing materials helps form fluid iron-bearing slags whose iron is reduced mainly by coke fines in the coke column. Lump iron ore, specially prepared washing sinters, or welding slag are usually used for this purpose. The washing sinter contains up to 50% ferrous oxide. One alternative to the washing sinter might be briquets made from mill scale. Washing briquets made from mill scale with a cement binder (8–10% Portland cement M500) are made by vibrational compaction. These briquets have good cold strength, remain intact when heated in a reducing atmosphere to 1200°C at a rate of 500°C/h (which corresponds to the rate of heating of the blast-furnace charge), and have low reducibility. Inside the fusion zone, they form primary slags based on iron-calcium olivines with an FeO content on the order of 50%.