A program of improvements at Tata Steel’s blast furnaces will reduce the site’s carbon footprint by about 160,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. The continuous improvement program of work in three of the seven stoves will upgrade the burners that generate heat, with two new best available technology units being installed. Many of the refractory bricks that store heat and make hot blast air, are also being replaced. The work is being carried out while the remaining operational stoves are in use.The two Port Talbot furnaces, which currently produce around 3.6 million tonnes of liquid iron each year, are powered by high pressure hot blast air that is superheated to temperatures of more than 1,100 degree Celsius. Recycled on-site process gases are used to heat the air in seven refractory-brick-lined stoves, before it is injected into the furnaces. Each stove is around 45 meter high and 8 meters diameter.Stoves are critical to the running of blast furnaces. Any loss of efficiency in heating the air means to use more gas than is optimum, or to replace that lost energy by using more metallurgical coke to chemically reduce the iron ore inside the furnaces.”
A program of improvements at Tata Steel’s blast furnaces will reduce the site’s carbon footprint by about 160,000 tonnes of CO2 a year. The continuous improvement program of work in three of the seven stoves will upgrade the burners that generate heat, with two new best available technology units being installed. Many of the refractory bricks that store heat and make hot blast air, are also being replaced. The work is being carried out while the remaining operational stoves are in use.The two Port Talbot furnaces, which currently produce around 3.6 million tonnes of liquid iron each year, are powered by high pressure hot blast air that is superheated to temperatures of more than 1,100 degree Celsius. Recycled on-site process gases are used to heat the air in seven refractory-brick-lined stoves, before it is injected into the furnaces. Each stove is around 45 meter high and 8 meters diameter.Stoves are critical to the running of blast furnaces. Any loss of efficiency in heating the air means to use more gas than is optimum, or to replace that lost energy by using more metallurgical coke to chemically reduce the iron ore inside the furnaces.”
