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VERSION:2.0
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ORGANIZER;CN=ESTAD 2023:mailto:info@metec-estad.com
LOCATION:Room 18a
SUMMARY:Electric arc furnace decarburization enhancement evaluation using CO2 bottom stirring: Density functional theory (DFT) based thermodynamic and kinetic computational simulation
DESCRIPTION:The electric arc furnace (EAF) based steelmaking process utilizes DRI and/or scrap as raw material and electricity as an energy source. Usually, the DRI /molten Iron has a high amount of carbon content, up to 4%. Therefore, carbon removal (decarburized) is one of the prime interests of the steel industry. In usual practice, an electric arc furnace uses an oxygen jet from the top, which performs decarburization and results in the formation of CO bubbles. Furnace bottom stirring is driving the bath homogeneity and maximizes the decarburization rate. The high-level quantum chemical energetics and chemical kinetics calculations confirm that, soft oxidant CO2 reacts with carbon presents in molten steel but at a slower speed than O2. Therefore, co-feeding CO2 in mixture with the Oxygen stream from the top side will not contribute to the objective of the process decarburization rate/efficiency enhancement due to reaction selectivity towards O2 rather than CO2. Nevertheless, introducing an optimal quantity of CO2 to substitute and/or replace bottom-stirring Argon/Nitrogen gas should enhance the process performance. Therefore, introducing CO2 gas from the bottom considering the absent of Oxygen at this zone as a replacement or partial replacement of N2/Ar would start decarburization at early stage when it is challenging to provide sufficient significant amount of oxygen from the top.
Density functional theory (DFT) based thermodynamic and kinetic used to evaluate the potential advantage using CO2 in bath stirring and its impact on overall decarburization. The high-level Thermodynamics and Kinetics calculations have been performed manually using Quantum chemical calculations within the framework of DFT based the first principle formalism. The molecular level calculation was performed using molecular DFT however, for solid-state calculation; a plane wave DFT approach has been used. In the current setup of steel making process there are multiple competitive reactions occurs within the steel bath. The CO2 injection into steel bath will initiate several other reactions besides decarburization. In this study a comprehensive investigation of thermodynamics and kinetics profiles of all the possible reactions at the operating temperature of the furnace (~ 1600˚C) helps, understand the feasibility of CO2 injection into steel bath, Thermodynamic and kinetic profiling of all reactions using Gibbs free energy to understand the competitive feasibility of different reactions.
Thus, based on comparison of energetics of the most significant reactions in the steel bath, introducing CO2 from the bottom in combination with stirring gas shall have positive impact on overall decarburization rate of molten steel bath.
CLASS:PUBLIC
DTSTART:20230614T145000
DTEND:20230614T151000
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