Heat recovery from slag improves

energy efficiency of furnaces

by Mike Rycroft, features editor, EE Publishers

Metal smelting furnaces use huge amounts of energy, much of which is lost when molten metal and slag is cooled down. The current trend to
use waste heat sources to generate electricity has focussed attention on this source of energy and several options are under consideration.

Recover y of waste heat provides both oil, natural gas, and electricity; however, values because of their weak hydraulicity
financial and environmental benefits to there are also internally generated fuels, due to the high content of cr ystalline
companies in the metallurgical industry. i.e. coke, coke-oven gas, blast-furnace phases. Resultant environmental issues
The energy recovered from these waste gas, and some electricity. and the discovery that processed slag has
heat streams can be re-integrated into a commercial value have resulted in the
Currently, two types of technologies
t h e p r o c e s s e s u s e d a t t h e f u r n a c e, development of other means of handling
are under development for utilising the
saving energy at the plant and improving slag. These all require rapid cooling of the
thermal energy of slags; recovery as hot
energy efficiency of the plant, provided slag and this led to the development of the
air or steam and conversion to chemical
to other plants in the vicinity. Recovery idea that the cooling process could involve
energy as fuel [2]. The former route is
of waste heat from furnace off-gas and recovery of heat which could be re-used.
most developed with its large scale trials
other sources in furnaces has been well
demonstrating recover y efficiencies up Granulation of slag
documented in other articles and this
to 65%. The latter is emerging as the
article will focus on the recovery of heat Slag previously discarded, has commercial
next generation methods of waste heat
from slag. value when processed into the right form,
recovery. An evaluation of these methods
Depending upon the type of slag handling shows that for both thermal and chemical but must be cooled down in a controlled
process, waste heat can be recovered at energy recovery routes, a two-step process manner to achieve the required properties.
different temperatures at different stages, would yield a high efficiency with minimal Several processes have been developed
and can be used in several different ways: technical risk, although recent research to process the slag and recover heat in
has shown that a three step process may the way needed. One of the most obvious
l Directly by integration into the furnace systems is the production of steam or
be even more efficient [8].
p r o c e s s, s u c h a s p r e h e a t i n g o f hot water for use in power generation or
combustion air, drying of materials, etc Energy recovery from slag is difficult as heat industrial processes, and this application
l For production of heat in the form of removal results in a phase change from has resulted in a number of systems which
hot water or steam for use directly in liquid to solid. Formation of solid slag on the satisfy the cooling requirements of the slag
production or to produce mechanical surface of cooling slag inhibits heat transfer while recovering useful energy.
power and solidification of the slag prevents
circulation or movement of slag through Processing of liquid slag now involves
l For electrical power production
heat exchangers and heat transfer devices. production of granules by rapidly cooling
The most satisfactory way of utilising the droplets of liquid slag, to produce a
recovered heat is to use it on the blast Formerly slag was poured into slag pits product similar to river sand which is used
furnace [1]. This means that the supply and allowed to solidify and cool with no in the cement and concrete industries.
of recovered heat will match the blast- attempt at heat recovery. Cooled slag was Production of granules with the right
furnace demand. The energy flows in an “mined” and processed for re-use in other qualities requires cooling at a controlled
integrated steelworks are complex. The industries such as the cement and concrete rate, which involves removal of heat from
main purchased primary fuels are coal, makers. The resultant slag has low utilisation the liquid slag. Recover y of this heat
and re-use for other processes within
the furnace presents an opportunity for
reducing the energy requirements of the
furnace and associated plant.

Wet granulation
Initial methods used for production of
granules involved direct cooling with
water, which required immense amounts
of water and resulted in a wet end product
which needed extra heat for dr ying.
Direct contact with the cooling water also
meant that the water contained impurities
and could not be used directly in other
processes.

Dry granulation
Dry granulation is the processing of slag
with heat recovery, and involves breaking
up the liquid slag into droplets which pass
through a dry cooling stage, where some
of the heat is recovered and where they
Fig. 1: Air blast granulator. are solidified into small granules. These

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Fig. 2: Rotating cup atomiser. Fig. 3: Spinning disc atomiser [5]. Fig. 4: Fluidised bed granulator [6].

solid granules, which are still at a high Spinning disc atomiser [5] Using the heat to produce or manufacture
temperature, are then further cooled to an energy carrier which can be stored
Similar to the rotating cup but the slag
recover remaining heat. and used as required offers a significant
stream is fed onto a rotating disc where it
spreads to the outer periphery and is then advantage.
Heat is recovered in two stages :
ejected as droplets which are solidified in Steam and hot water does not require
l Hear removed from solidification of an air stream (Fig 3). high quality heat which is consequently
the droplets at ≈1500°C into granules
wasted in the process. Sensible heat is
in the initial air cooling stage . Fluidised bed granulator [6] commonly used in heat recover y, for
l Heat recovered from the solid granules This proposed process feeds solidified example, in the generation of hot water
cooling down from ≈800°C to whatever granules into the slag stream which causes or steam from the waste heat of an
temperature is used for further heat the slag to solidify and form granules incinerator. In this process, the heat from
extraction. Heat in the range from which fall into a fluidised bed where heat high temperature wastes is used as a low
200°C to ambient is recovered by is extracted via boiler tubes (Fig. 4) [6]. energy resource with low quality. Therefore,
convection through walls of device the conventional method of utilising high
and radiation into cooling air and All processes use some form of fluidised
temperature waste heat by generating hot
water. bed to remove heat from the solid
water or steam is inefficient.
granules after production.
Several different types of device have Many reactions used in the chemical
been evolved to produce granules from All the above processes use a two-step
industry are endothermic and require high
the liquid slag and extract heat from the heat recover y process. A three-step
quality, high temperature heat to occur,
granulation process. process which claims to recover more of
and fossil fuel or electricity is used to
the heat has recently been proposed [7].
produce the heat required. Many of these
Air blast granulator [3] This process is based on controlling the
reactions result in a combustible product
cooling rates in three phases of cooling.
In the air blast process, high-speed in gaseous form which can be stored and
and high-pressure gas is blown into the re-used in the furnace or associated plant.
Energy content of slag
stream of molten slag, breaking the slag Therefore, if waste heat is combined with
up into tiny particles. (Fig. 1) This stage is It is estimated that that in excess of 40% of the desired endothermic reaction, it will
accompanied with rapid cooling. As early the energy supplied to a smelter furnace facilitate significant energy conservation.
as 1977, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and is contained in the slag left over after the
process [8]. It is obvious that this represents Several processes have been considered,
NKK built a pilot plant at NKK’s Fukuyama
an opportunity to recycle the heat from such as, methane steam reforming to
factory to investigate air blast method for
the slag to produce or energy or for re- produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide,
the purpose of recovering the sensible
use in processes used in the smelter. It is coal gasification, and hydrogen production
heat of liquid oxygen converter slag.
estimated that 1 t of steel for instance, from biogas.
Then the world’s first set of industrial slag
processing equipment was built in 1981. produces 300 kg of slag with a thermal
Methane reforming [8]
In this process, the high-speed air flow not energy content of 1,8 Gj (500 kWh) [5].
only crashes the slag stream to granules The basic reaction here is:
Chemical or phase change methods of CH4 + H 20 → CO + 3H 20
but also feeds the granules into a boiler
to have a highly intensive heat transfer [3]. heat recovery
This reaction is energy consuming, and
To date most recovery systems have used is extensively used in direct reduction
Rotating cup atomiser (RCA) [4] waste heat to produce hot water or steam. and methanol production processes.
In this system the liquid slag stream is fed The drawback of these systems however, is Moreover, this reaction is also used for the
into a rotating cup where centrifugal force that slag is not produced on a continuous production of hydrogen from natural gas.
creates droplets which are ejected at basis but in batches, and as steam and Being an environmentally friendly resource,
high speed and solidified in an air stream hot water do not store very well research hydrogen is considered an alternative
before falling into a fluidised bed or other has been focussed on systems that can source of energy and its demand is
heat exchange medium (Fig. 2). capture the energy in a long term storable. expected to surpass that of fossil fuels.

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Fig. 6: Proposed system for coal gasification

Fig. 5: Methane reforming process [8]. using heat from slag.

The combination process proposed above References Emissions in Iron & Steel Industr y while
Improving Business Efficiency ”, FE Tech
has the potential to generate hydrogen [1] SJ Pickering, et al: “New process for dry
granulation and heat recover y from Conference, 26-27 November 2013.
by utilising the reaction heat from high [6] T Shimizu, et al: “Heat recovery from melted
molten blast-furnace slag”, Ironmaking and
temperature waste such as exhaust gas Steelmaking, Vol. 12, No.1, 1985. blast furnace slag using fluidised bed” The
and steelmaking slag [8]. 13th international conference on fluidisation
[2] M Barati, et al: “Energy recovery from high
– new paradigm in fluidisation engineering,
temperature slags”, Energy: Volume 36, Issue
In the system of heat recovery from molten http://dc.engconfintl.org/cgi/viewcontent.cg
9, September 2011. i?article=1077&context=fluidization_xiii
slag proposed in this study, molten slag [3] S Yongqi, et al: “A review of waste heat [7] Yongqi Sun, et al: “Multi-stage control of waste
is granulated using a RCA and then a recovery technologies towards molten slag in heat recovery from high temperature slags
steel industry”, http://cte.cqu.edu.cn/cquiet/ based on time temperature transformation
packed bed made up of granulated slag papers/A review of waste heat recovery c u r v e s ” h t t p: / / w w w. m d p i. c o m / 1 9 9 6 -
is generated under the RCA as shown in technologies towards molten.pdf 1073/7/3/1673
Fig. 5. To enable heat recovery during the 4] SJ Pickering, et al: “New process for dry [8] N Maruaoka, et al: “Feasibility study for
endothermic reaction, methane and water granulation and heat recovery from molten recovering waste heat in the steelmaking
blast-furnace slag”, http://masters.donntu. industry using a chemical recuperator” ISIJ
are introduced into the lower part of the edu.ua/2005/fizmet/konchenko/librar y/ International, Vol. 44, 2004.
packed bed. The packed bed preheats article11.htm
the steam and methane and then converts [5] S Jahanshahi: “Breakthrough and Enabling Send your comments to:
Technologies for Reducing Waste and [email protected] v
it into hydrogen and carbon monoxide
in the help of a Ni based material as a
catalyst at the bottom of the RCA.

Coal gasification [3]

The basic reaction here is:
C + H2O → CO + H 2

Fig. 5 shows a proposed system for coal

gasification using slag [3]. Coal gasification
is a typical endothermic process, and blast
furnace slag needs a rapid cooling in
the processing procedure. The concept
combines the two procedures and utilises
the sensible heat of blast furnace slag to
produce coal gas. Coal powder and liquid
slag are mixed before being sent into a
rotating cup. The mixture is granulated and
then drop onto specially designed slag
beds with air supplied from underneath.
The energy of the slag is transferred to
the coal and air. The coal gasification
reaction and the slag solidification occur
simultaneously, and the residual carbon
powder is exposed to the air in the slag
bed for a further combustion. No further
information on the development of this
idea has been reported [3].

Heat recovery from slag is being researched

at many institutions worldwide. Recovery
of heat from slag offers the opportunity
to improve the energy efficiency of
metallurgical furnaces and produce useful
by-products.

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