EAF steelmaking process with increasing hot metal charging ratio and improving slagging regime

A new electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking process with increasing hot metal charging ratio and improving slagging regime simultaneously was developed and applied in a 50 t electric arc furnace for more than a year at No.1 Steelmaking Plant of Shanxi Taigang Stainless Corporation Limited. The essential fact of the new EAF steelmaking process was to charge hot metal in two portions or steps: firstly, 35wt%-40wt% hot metal was pretreated by blowing oxygen in a specially designed reactor for decarburization and improving hot metal temperature and melting premelted slag; secondly, 30wt% hot metal was charged into EAF with high basicity refining slags from ladle furnace (LF)-vacuum degassing furnace (VD) refining process. The results show that the hot metal charging ratio can reach to about 65wt%-70wt% for the new EAF steelmaking process; meanwhile, the tap-to-tap time of a 50 t EAF can shorten by 5-10 min, the electricity consumption can decrease by 35-50 kW·h/t, the lime consumption can reduce by 10.5 kg/t of molten steel, and the content of harmful heavy metals in molten steel can be easily controlled to less than the upper limits of aimed steel specification or grade compared with the traditional EAF steelmaking process. In addition, the dephosphorization ability shows a slight strengthening, however, a small degree of lessening for desulphurization ability is observed for the new EAF steelmaking process, but the weakness of desulphurization ability cannot become an obstacle to its further application since a stronger desulphurization ability can be achieved during secondary refining of LF coupled with VD after EAF steelmaking process.