ISIJ International, Vol. 52 (2012), No. 12, pp.

21862193

A Comprehensive Static Model for COREX Process

Yingxia QU,1)* Zongshu ZOU1) and Yanping XIAO2)

1) School of Materials & Metallurgy, Northeastern University, Shenyang, 110004 China.

2) Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 2, 2628 CD Delft.
(Received on May 31, 2012; accepted on July 31, 2012)

COREX is the first industrially proven smelting reduction process in the world. In this paper, a static
model has been developed based on mass and heat balances. Further, a zoned model for the melter-
gasifier was established on the basis of the static model. The model is capable of calculating the
consumption of iron ores, coal, fluxes, the volume and composition of the slag and the volume and com-
position of the reducing gas from melter-gasifier. The model enables the examination of the changes of
material and heat flows induced by the variations of operation parameters and raw materials chemical
compositions. The model allows optimization of operation parameters of the COREX process, which can
thus be used to improve the plant operation under different conditions.

KEY WORDS: COREX process; reduction shaft; melter-gasifier; smelting reduction; static model; zoned
model.

the melter-gasifier from the reduction shaft via speed-

1. Introduction
controlled screw conveyors. Additionally, non-coking coal,
Up to now, iron for producing steel is still mainly quartzite and the required quantity of coke are charged by
produced in the conventional ironmaking process of blast means of a lock hopper system. Oxygen is injected through
furnaces, which has evolved into highly efficient reactors. the tuyeres, which gasifies the coal char and generates CO.
Furthermore, blast furnaces use coke which requires special The sensible heat of the hot gases is transferred to the char
coal and the coke become more and more expensive. bed, which is utilized for melting iron and slag and other
Besides, coke plants have many environment problems metallurgical reactions. The gas at the temperature between
associated with their operation. Thus, from an economical 1 050C and 1 100C from the melter-gasifier is cooled to
and environmental point of view to produce iron without the reduction gas temperature (850C) by the addition of
coke, numbers of smelting reduction process have been cooling gas. A major part of this gas is subsequently fed to
developed. COREX is the worlds first and the only com- the reduction shaft. The excess gas and the reduction shaft
mercially established smelting-reduction process, as an top gas are mixed before the take-over point and are termed
alternative route to blast furnace, based mainly on non- COREX export gas.
coking coal. It is regarded as one of the most promising The heat and mass balance calculation for an ironmaking
alternative iron-making processes in the world which is process plays an important role in the in-situ operation. For
developed and marketed by Voest Alpine Industrianlagenbau this reason, a lot of researchers have studied on it. P.
(VAI), Austria. Pichestapong and Y. K. Rao4) have developed a static model
The most innovative feature of the COREX process is the
separation of the iron reduction and smelting into two sep-
arate reactors, namely reduction shaft and melter-gasifier as
shown in Fig. 1, which were described elsewhere.13) The
reduction shaft is placed above the melter-gasifier and
reduced iron-bearing materials descend by gravity. The
reduction gas around 800850C and with more than
0.3 Mpa pressure moves in the counter current direction to
the top of the shaft and exits from the shaft at around 250
300C. The iron-bearing material is reduced to over 7090%
metallization in the shaft, and is termed DRI (direct reduced
iron). Subsequently, the hot DRI (around 800C) and par-
tially calcined limestone and dolomite are discharged into

* Corresponding author: E-mail: quyingxia800@163.com

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2355/isijinternational.52.2186 Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of COREX process.

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 ISIJ International, Vol. 52 (2012), No. 12
for COREX process. The operating data used in the model
was from COREX C-1000 unit at the Pretoria (South Africa)
works of the Iscor Ltd. The scale of the model was based
on producing 1 t hot metal. Mass balance was calculated
through the element balance equations of Fe, C, H and O.
The carbon balance in this paper shows that about 50% of
the dust was collected in the hot-cyclone and returned to the
melter-gasifier via dust burners. In the reduction shaft, 95%
of total iron in the ore was converted to metallic iron and
three-fourths of the total reduction was with CO and the rest
with H2. However, this assumption is with uncertainties.
From the heat balance calculation, it was found that 90% of
the heat required in the melter-gasifier was generated by the
exothermic reactions. In the reduction shaft, 80% of the heat
was taken by the reducing gas. Kumar and Garg5) developed
a composite model for computational analysis of the
COREX process. The model also combines a set of common
material and heat balance equations. Raw materials con-
sumptions were calculated by mass balance equations for
Fe, Mn, MgO, Al2O3 and CaO/SiO2. The slag volume and
composition were calculated from the total amount of Al2O3
coming from raw materials and % Al2O3 required in the
slag. And the module determines slag by assuming that
CaO + MgO + SiO2 + Al2O3 = 96.5%. In this way, the qua-
ternary basicity in the slag was determined, but it was not
used as a direct variable parameter to control the model.
They stated that the major variables impacting upon slag
rate are fuel rate and variation in raw material compositions,
particularly Al2O3, ranging from 2.2 to 2.8%. For a 0.1%
increase of Al2O3 in pellets, the slag volume increased by
8 kg/tHM (per ton hot metal).
In this study, a raw materials optimization module and
user friendly visual operation interfaces were added to the
static model. The two parallel raw materials consumption
modules based on different purposes which are direct con-
trol of basicity and direct control of Al2O3 in the slag were
combined into the overall model. The operator can select the
suitable one to get an expected prediction. Further more, a
zoned static model for melter-gasifier was developed on the
basis of the overall static model, which is helpful to get
more insight of the melter-gasifier.
2. Static Model and Computation Method
The static process model is the core of the computer-
control system of the COREX process in the plant. The
consumption of raw materials, fluxes, the volume and com-
position of the slag and the volume and composition of the
generator gas (the off-gas from the melter-gasifier) and
reducing gas (the gas fed into the reduction shaft) as shown
in Fig. 1 are calculated by a set of mass and heat balance
equations and constraint conditions which include binary
basicity (CaO/SiO2), quaternary basicity ((CaO+MgO)/
(SiO2+Al2O3)) and the composition of the hot metal. The
typical range of input values and initial value of outputs
were taken from the literature3) and plant data. The main
reactions taking place inside the shaft include the reduction
of iron oxide by CO/H2, calcination of limestone and dolo-
mite, carbon deposition reaction and formation of Fe3C. In
the melter-gasifier, in addition to the reduction of residual
iron oxide as well as the decomposition of residual
2187
limestone and dolomite, the reactions also include the devol-
atilisation of coal, decomposition of volatile matter and
liberation of methane and higher hydrocarbons, carbon solu-
tion and char combustion reactions, steam-carbon reaction
and water gas shift reaction. Finally, melting and formation
of hot metal and slag take place in the hearth of the melter-
gasifier.
2.1. Construction of the Comprehensive Static Model
The overall static model is consisted of six sub modules
which are raw material optimization module, raw material
and flux consumption module, generator gas volume and
composition module, coal and oxygen consumption module,
shaft furnace balance module and the last one is user inter-
face module. It is assumed that hematite decomposes to
wustite and oxygen, and then oxygen reacts with reducing
gas or carbon. The same procedure applies for the reduction
of wusite. Because the model was set up at the steady state,
the simplification wont change the final results. The con-
cept of the complicated static model is illustrated as a flow
chart in Fig. 2. The model started with the heat and mass
balance calculation of melter-gasifier, and then the results of
the model of melter-gasifier were used as the initial input for
the computation of the model of shaft furnace. All the
results of the mathematical model were saved in the data
base.
The raw material optimization module works as a tool for
data pretreatment, by which the operating parameters can be
adjusted. The main function of the raw material optimiza-
tion module is to calculate the ratios of coal/coke and iron
ore/pellet. The target compositions of coal mixture and ore
mixture are the empirical values from the COREX plants,
which were mostly used to meet the requirement of COREX
process. The material optimization module was developed
with the method of least-squares algorithm. It can export
several groups of mixed material compositions which are
the closest to target value. At the same time, the price issue
Fig. 2. Flow chart of the static model.
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is taken into account as the second important factor. The

operators can make a choice considering the balance (
R4 = mCaO + mMgO ) (m SiO2 + mAl2 O3 ) ........... (3)
between the composition and price. The coal consumption
is determined by several factors like the chemical composi- Quantity of slag
tion of coal, gas oxidation degree and heat loss etc. This
module assumes that the heat loss of the melter-gasifier is mslag = (mCaO + mSiO2 + mAl2 O3 + mMgO + mMnO + mCaS + mP2 O5 )
constant. Coal consumption is calculated through iteration
until the total heat input equals the total heat output. The
(1 w(FeO) ) slag

consumption of oxygen is calculated from oxygen balance
of the melter-gasifier. The composition of reducing gas is
the same as the generator gas and the temperature is
assumed to be 850C when it is injected into the reduction
shaft furnace. It is assumed that the metallization of iron
bearing materials in the reduction shaft is 80% according to
the experience of plant, and calcination degrees of limestone
and dolomite are 50% and 100% respectively before leaving
the shaft at 800C. To keep the reduction ability of reducing
.......................................... (4)
The other approach for calculating raw materials consump-
tions is solved with a set of balance equations of Fe, R2,
MgO and Al2O3. Instead of equations of (3) and (4), Eqs. (5)
and (6) is applied,
(MgO) balance
mi w(MgO)i = mdust w[MgO]dust + mslag w(MgO)slag
i

gas, the reduction potential of reducing gas at the top of .......................................... (5)
shaft furnace should be higher than 1.26 ((CO + H2)/(CO2 + (Al2O3) balance
H2O)) and its minimum temperature was set to be 300C.
The user interface module aims to get user-friendly oper- mi w(Al2 O3 )i = mdust w[Al2 O3 ]dust + mslag w(Al2 O3 )slag
ation interfaces for the operator. The boundary conditions i
.......................................... (6)
and the compositions of raw materials are saved in the data-
base and displayed on the interface by applying the ADO Here, in the equations, i denotes the raw materials including
(ActiveX Data Objects) technology. All the initial condi- iron ore, coal, limestone, dolomite and quartz; mi represents
tions can be reset on the interface directly without accessing the mass of raw material for producing one ton of hot metal
the database. The results of the model are also displayed on (kg); w(j)i denotes the mass fraction of j in i material; mHM
the interface and saved in the database with a name given is the mass of hot metal, one ton in this study; mslag denotes
by the user. the mass of slag (kg); w(Fe)HM denotes the mass fraction of
Fe in hot metal; w(FeO)slag, w(MgO)slag, w(Al2O3)slag denotes
2.1.1. Raw Material Consumption Module the mass fraction of FeO, MgO and Al2O3 in slag, respec-
The core of the calculation of the overall static model is tively; w(j)dust denotes the mass fraction of j in the flue dust.
the raw material consumption module which aims to calcu- Mj denote the mass of j in slag.
late the consumption of raw materials (pellets, ores, fluxes,
etc.), as well as the amount and chemical composition of the 2.1.2. Generator Gas Volume and Composition Module
slag. Basicities are the important parameter of measuring the In this module, the volume fraction of CH4 is assumed to
viscosity of the slag. For that the binary basicity R2 (CaO/ be constant and all the N2 comes from the volatile of coal
SiO2) and quaternary basicity R4 ((CaO+MgO)/(SiO2+Al2O3)) and the carrier gas. The volume and composition of gener-
of the slag were initialized before calculation and can be ator gas is calculated by solving the four balance equations
changed easily on the user interface as described above. The of H, C, equilibrium constant of water gas shift reaction and
module solves four balance equations (Eqs. (1)(4)) for Fe, gas oxidation degree which are given below:
binary basicity, quaternary basicity and slag amount. The
Hydrogen balance
input items for the module are: (a) composition of raw mate-
rials, (b) specified consumption of quartz, (c) expected R2
and R4 values in the slag. Ore consumption can be calculat-
mi w(H )i = 4 VCH 4
+ 2 (VH2 + VH2 O ) 22.4 ... (7)
i
ed from the equation of Fe balance, and the amount of the Carbon balance
limestone and the dolomite and the composition of slag are
obtained from equations of (2) and (3). In this way, the mi w(C)i = mHM w[C]HM + (VCO + VCO 2
)
+ VCH4 12 22.4
amount of quartz and the other gangue materials determine i
.......................................... (8)
the amount of the slag.
Four balance equations are listed as follows. The equilibrium constant of water gas shift reaction
Fe balance (
K = VH2 VCO2 ) (V
CO VH2 O )
.... (9)
mi w( Fe )i = mHM w[Fe]HM + mslag w( FeO)slag 56 72 (
= exp 29 490 26.8 Tgas ) (8.314 T ) gas
i
.......................................... (1)
Gas oxidation degree
Binary basicity
(
OD = VH2 O + VCO2 ) (V H2 O + VCO2 + VH2 + VCO ... (10) )
R2 = mCaO mSiO2 ............................ (2)
In the above four equations, VH2 O , VCO2, VCO, VH2 , VCH4 denote
Quaternary basicity the volume of H2O, CO2, CO, H2, CH4 in gas for producing

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1 t hot metal (Nm3). w(C)HM denotes the mass fraction of C
in hot metal; w(H)i and w(C)i are the mass fraction of H and
C in i material; Tgas and OD are the gas temperature (K) and
oxidation degree.
2.2. Model Establishment for the Reaction Zones of
Melter-gasifier
The overall static model of COREX process can only pro-
vide the information of mass flows and heat flows at the
inlet and outlet of the two reactors. The melter-gasifier is a
complicated reactor in which multiphase reactions take
place continuously. In order to get more insights into the
reactor, a five-zoned static model was developed for the
melter-gasifier, which is useful for studying the energy dis-
tribution, chemical reactions and the temperature and com-
position of the generator gas in each zone. According to the
physical state of the burden and the different conditions of
chemical reactions, the melter-gasifier can be divided into
five zones from top to bottom, which are the free board, flu-
idized bed, packed bed, raceway and hearth as shown in Fig.
3. However, whether there is a fluidized bed above the
packed bed is still a question to all the researchers. The site
operators in BaoSteel claim that there would be a thin layer
of fluidized bed of about 100 mm. Kumar P. P and co-
workers6) combined the fluidized bed and the packed bed in
their work. In this study, the fluidized bed was studied as
one of the five zones.
On the basis of the overall COREX process model, the
results of composition and temperature of the generator gas
can be obtained as the boundary condition of the free board,
and the results of the compositions and temperatures of the
slag and hot metal are used as the boundary condition of the
hearth. Therefore, the calculation of the zoned static model
starts from both sides of the furnace which are the free board
and hearth zone, and finally meets at the packed bed. The
following assumptions are made in the model: (a) all the
dust is generated in the free board zone, and the carbon in
the dust is from coal, (b) all the injected oxygen in the race-
way reacts with carbon generating the reducing gas of CO,
(c) the temperature of injected oxygen and pulverized coal
Fig. 3. Five modeling zones of COREX melter-gasfier.
2189
is at room temperature, (d) all the residual dolomite and
limestone from the shaft furnace complete their decomposi-
tion in the packed bed.
In the zoned static model, three critical parameters are
considered, which are the distribution ratio of oxygen, the
adiabatic flame temperature at raceway and the calculation
of the heating value of coal. In this study, certain amount of
pulverized coal is injected into the raceway through oxygen
tuyeres as the substitution of part of lump coal charging
from the dome of the melter-gasifer. Such an operation will
affect directly the adiabatic flame temperature. Therefore,
the three parameters become much more significant for con-
sidering pulverized coal injection.
2.2.1. Distribution Ratio of Oxygen
The distribution ratio of oxygen is defined as the ratio of
the oxygen input in the free board to the total oxygen input
in the melter-gasifier, which plays an important role in
determining energy distribution and temperature profiles in
the melter-gasifier. It should be adjusted to an appropriate
value to ensure that the temperature of off-gas of the reactor
is between 1 000C and 1 100C. If the gas temperature at
the dome of the melter-gasifier is below 950C, the quality
of the gas goes down due to the incomplete thermal cracking
of volatile from coal. Simultaneously, a lot of tar forms in
the pipes of off gas system, and then the pipes are clogging
up due to the accumulation of tar. However, if the gas tem-
perature is above 1 100C, such a high temperature would
lead to softening and melting of dust in the gas and the dust
would be accumulated at the inlet of the cyclone separator.
The off-gas system would also be clogged. On the other
hand, the off-gas takes a lot of heat away from the melter-
gasifer, leading to a high energy loss of the furnace. In the
raceway, the gas temperature determines the heat transfer
efficiency from the hot gas to the hearth zone, as the hot gas
is the only heat source of the hearth zone. If its not strong
enough, the separation of slag and metal, as well as the des-
ulphurization of hot metal will not reach the expected level,
leading to a poor quality of hot metal. Therefore, it is nec-
essary to optimize oxygen distribution ratio to control the
gas temperatures at the free board and the raceway zone. In
this model, the oxygen distribution ratio is adjusted by the
temperature difference of charges and gas at the lower sur-
face of the free board through interaction.
2.2.2. The Heating Value of Coal
Once the pulverized coal is injected into the raceway and
exposed in the oxidation gas, the coal particles are heated
up quickly, and the reactions of thermal decomposition and
combustion take place intensively. The heat in the raceway
consumed for the reaction of coal volatile thermal decom-
position increases with the increase of volatile content in the
pulverized coal. In other words, the decomposition of coal
volatile plays an important role in determining the adiabatic
flame temperature in the raceway.
The heating value of a fuel includes the lower heating val-
ue (Qlow, kJ/kg) and the higher heating value (Qhigh, kJ/kg).
The higher heating value of a coal takes into account the
latent heat of vaporization of water in the combustion, while
the lower heating value of a coal doesnt. The final products
are CO2, N2 and H2O (g) or H2O (l). A lot of researchers68)
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 ISIJ International, Vol. 52 (2012), No. 12
have studied the correlation of heating value with composi-
tion since the Dulong formula for heating value was pro-
posed in 1891. Some formulas of calculating the heating
values based on the ultimate analysis while others are based
on the proximate analysis. However, the results are quite
different from each other for that they used different types
of coal like lignite, anthracite and soft coal etc. Besides this
reason, the coals used in their experiment were from differ-
ent origins, the formulas have many limitations in the appli-
cation. In this study, the formula from literature9) is adopted,
which combines the ultimate analysis and proximate analy-
sis methods, leading to a high-accuracy empirical formula as
follows.
Q high = 0.4323C + 1.595H + 0.21S 0.00152O
... (11)
+0.087A 0.0152 V 9.975
The lower heating value is calculated by Eq. (12).
Q high = Q low + Q vap ........................ (12)
Where, C, H, S and O denote the mass percentage (%) of
each element in the coal based on ultimate analysis. The
capital letters of A and V denote the mass percentage (%)
of ash and volatile in the coal.
2.2.3. Raceway Adiabatic Flame Temperature
Normally, the adiabatic flame temperature is the temper-
ature that results from a complete coal combustion process
that occurs without any heat transfer or changes in kinetic
or potential energy, which describes the temperature the
combustion products theoretically reach if no energy is lost
to the outside environment. It is a critical parameter for
judging the situation of the hearth of the traditional process
blast furnace, especially the furnace with pulverized coal
injection technology. An appropriate raceway adiabatic
flame temperature (RAFT) can guarantee a smooth running,
sufficient heat in the furnace as well as high-efficiency pul-
verized coal combustion. The relationship between raceway
and hearth of COREX is similar to that of blast furnace.
Therefore it is also regarded as a significant parameter of
COREX process. In this model, the RAFT is calculated by
the method of interaction in the raceway zone. For the injec-
tion of pulverized coal, the combustion heat transfers to
combustion products, and also supplies heat to the thermal
decomposition of pulverized coal. The RAFT with the injec-
tion of pulverized coal is lower than that without pulverized
coal injection. From this aspect, the effect of the quantity of
pulverized coal injection on RAFT can be predicted.
3. Results and Discussion
Figure 4 shows an example of mass flow sheet of
COREX process under a typical operation condition. The
calculation conditions are defined that the metallization
degree of iron ore in the shaft furnace is 85%, the gas oxi-
dation degree at the top of the melter-gasifier is 7% and the
temperature of generator gas is 1 050C. Under steady state,
the consumption of iron ore, flux (limestone, dolomite and
quartzite) and coal as well as the consumption of reducing
gas by shaft furnace were calculated with the static process
model. Under this condition, 1 297.87 kg iron ore and
953.2 kg coal are required for producing 1 t hot metal.
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Fig. 4. Specific mass flow under a typical operation condition.
3.1. Effect of DRI Metallization
The effect of DRI metallization on coal and oxygen con-
sumptions can be studied with the static model. Higher met-
allization degree of DRI requires greater volume of reducing
gas or higher reduction potential of the gas in reduction
shaft. In the melter-gasifier, the reaction between coal and
oxygen, which generates a considerable amount of heat, is
the main heat source and also produces reducing gas for the
shaft. The higher the metallization degree of DRI in the
reduction shaft, the less quantity of reductant and fuel is
needed in the melter-gasifier. In other words, the consump-
tions of coal and oxygen in the melter-gasifier go down with
the increase of metallization degree of DRI as shown in Fig.
5. In this group of calculations, the temperature of the gen-
erator gas was set to be 1 050C and gas oxidation degree
was set to be 7%.
The volume of generator gas decreases with the increase
of metallization degree of DRI as shown in Fig. 6. The vol-
ume of reducing gas for shaft furnace decreases slowly at
the degree of metallization lower than 80% and then
increases. The volume of generator gas decreases with the
increase of DRI metallization degree. In the model, the heat
balance of the reactor or constraint of reduction potential of
reducing gas at the top of furnace determines the volume of
reducing gas required by shaft furnace. Heat balance is dom-
inant at the given conditions of DRI metallization degree
lower than 80%. The iron ore reduced by H2CO mixture
(VH2:VCO=1:3) is slightly exothermic, therefore the volume
of reducing gas for shaft furnace decreases and the con-
straint of reduction potential of reducing gas is higher than
1.26 in such a case. When the metallization degree is greater
than 80%, the volume of reducing gas is determined by the
constraint of reduction potential of reducing gas. In order to
keep an appropriate reduction potential of top gas, the
reducing gas volume should increase with the increase of
DRI metallization degree. In other words, if the metalliza-
tion degree of DRI is around 80%, the reduction potential
of reducing gas just reaches its limit value of 1.26 when the
heat balance is satisfied.
From the aspect of making full use of energy and saving
raw materials, it seems that it is the optimum status when
the volume of generator gas from melter-gasifer equals the
volume of reducing gas required by the reduction shaft. But
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 ISIJ International, Vol. 52 (2012), No. 12
Fig. 5. Effect of DRI metallization on coal and oxygen consump-
tions.
Fig. 6. Effect of DRI metallization on gas volumes.
this is not the actual situation. The temperature of the gen-
erator gas is 1 050C. However, the reducing gas for the
shaft should be around 850C for getting a smooth running
of reduction shaft. It means a part of cooling gas should be
added to the generator gas to decrease the gas temperature.
The ideal optimum volume of generator gas should equal
the sum of the volume of cooling gas and reducing gas.
Therefore, its necessary to study the relationship between
metallization degree and the excess gas which equals the
volume of generator gas minus the sum of the volume of
cooling gas and reducing gas.
Figure 7 shows the volume of excess gas as a function
of DRI metallization degree when the gas oxidation degree
is varied from 6% to 12%. When the excess gas is above
zero, the volume of generator gas is sufficient for the reduc-
ing gas and cooling gas. When the excess gas is below zero,
the melter-gasifier and reduction shaft dont match each oth-
er. The area below zero is the inoperable area. When the
excess gas equals zero, it is the theoretical optimum opera-
tion. With the increase of gas oxidation degree, the excess
gas apparently decreases at the same DRI metallization
degree. At the same gas oxidation degree, the excess gas
decreases gradually with the increase of DRI metallization
degree.
On the contrary, its also possible to optimize the process
at a given DRI metallization degree through adjusting the
gas oxidation degree as shown in Fig. 8. When the gas oxi-
dation degree becomes higher, the reaction of oxygen with
reductant will supply much more heat than low gas oxida-
tion degree. On one hand, less coal and oxygen are needed
2191
Fig. 7. Effect of DRI metallization on excess gas at different gas
oxidation degrees.
Fig. 8. Effect of gas oxidation degree on gas volumes.
to generate the required energy, and then the volume of gen-
erator gas decreases. On the other hand, if CO and H2 in the
gas decrease, more reducing gas should be supplied to the
reduction shaft. The optimum gas oxidation degree can thus
be obtained with the model.
3.2. Calculation of Zoned Static Model
Zoned static model is a useful tool to get an insight into
each zone. The free board plays an important role in the
melter-gasifier. The temperature of burden and gas in the
free board must be within a certain range to keep a smooth
running. Therefore, it has been drawn more and more atten-
tions in-situ. When other conditions are fixed, the tempera-
ture of solid materials and gas at the lower surface of free
board is closely related to the changing of oxygen distribu-
tion ratio. In order to study the effect of oxygen distribution
ratio on the furnaces behavior, it was set from 0.24 to 0.32
in a wider range than the typical range. The results of gas
and solid temperature at the lower surface of free board as
a function of oxygen distribution ratio were plotted in Fig.
9. With the increase of oxygen distribution ratio, the tem-
perature of gas which flows into the free board decreases
rapidly and the temperature of solid materials falling into
fluidized bed increases. The difference in temperature
between gas and solid at the surface becomes smaller. That
is because the char combustion heat in the raceway decreas-
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 ISIJ International, Vol. 52 (2012), No. 12
Fig. 9. Effect of oxygen ratio on gas and solid temperature at of the
lower surface of free board.
Fig. 10. Gas and burden temperatures at the upper surface of each
zone.
es for less oxygen injection, while the heat needed by the
packed bed and hearth doesnt change. Therefore, the gas
temperature becomes lower when the gas reaches the free
board under higher oxygen distribution ratio. After the gas
flows into the free board, the reactions of H2, CO, and recy-
cled dust with more O2 generate more heat which is mostly
used to heat the gas and solid materials. A small amount of
heat is used for water evaporation and other chemical reac-
tions. It leads to the temperature of solid materials becomes
higher at the lower surface of free board. This would accel-
erate the chemical reactions in the free board and is thus
favorable for smooth running of the melter-gasifier. Above
all, the average temperature of solid materials under high
oxygen distribution ratio is higher than that under low oxy-
gen distribution ratio in the free board.
Figure 10 shows the average temperatures of gas and
burden at the upper surface of each zone. In this case, the
temperature of off-gas is assumed to be 1 010C and the gas
oxidation degree is 12%. The burden temperature is always
lower than the gas temperature all along the height of the
melter-gasifier. The temperature of gas generated in the
raceway reaches the highest point of 3 200C. It goes down
greatly to 886C as the gas flows through the packed bed
and fluidized bed. The temperature of gas is increased by the
injection of oxygen. At the lower surface of the free board,
when gas temperature is 231C higher than the burden tem-
2012 ISIJ
perature, the oxygen distribution ratio is 0.29. For the coun-
tercurrent flow of gas and burden in the furnace, the gas
temperature decreases from the raceway to the free board
and it is around 1 010C at the top of the melter-gasifier. As
the burden passes through the fluidized bed, packed bed and
raceway, its temperature increases gradually from 380C,
and finally reaches the highest temperature of 1 775C at the
top of hearth.
3.3. Validation of Adiabatic Flame Temperature
In order to validate the reliability of the model, the results
of this model were compared with the results from litera-
tures and plant data for adiabatic flame temperature. The
temperatures of the oxygen and pulverized coal are 25C
and the temperature of char after combustion is assumed to
be 1 600C. The composition of the coal is shown in Table
1. All the calculation results below were obtained based on
the same conditions as mentioned above.
Siemens VAI proposed an empirical formula to calculate
the RAFT (C) as shown in Eq. (13). Cp,gas is the average
specific heat capacity of gas mixture (kJ/mol).10)
Cp,gas = 10 6 RAFT 2 + 0.0302 RAFT 9.6385 .... (13)
With this formula, the RATF is calculated to be 4 121.02C.
P. Prachethan Kumar et al.11) from Jindal South West steel
limited (JSW Steel Ltd) studied the RAFT with Eq. (14),
where Cp,char (kJ/mol) is the specific heat capacity of char
and Cp,CO (kJ/mol) is the specific heat capacity of CO.
RAFT = 1.071 (1 500 Cp,char + 2 201) (2.5 Cp,co + 25)
........................................ (14)
The RAFT is 3 400C with this method, which is 721C
lower than the results from VAI.
A patent from Pohang Iron and Steel Co. Ltd (POSCO)12)
reported the experimental data of the RAFT which are
shown in Table 2. The experiments were conducted with
different quantity of pulverized coal and the temperature at
the raceway was measured by a thermocouple. In order to
compare the experimental results with the results by other
methods under the same conditions, the composition of coal
listed in Table 1 is from this patent. From the table, it can
be concluded that the RAFT decreases with the increase of
pulverized coal injection. For example, in case there is no
injection of pulverized coal, the RAFT is 3 878C and in
case the pulverized coal injection is 200 kg/tHM, the RAFT
is 3 131C which is about 700C lower than that of no injec-
tion.
Above all, the RAFT from VAI model is the highest one
compared to the others. The result from JSW Steel Ltd is the
lowest one, which is only 3 400C. Being different from the
results from the two empirical formulas from VAI and JSW,
the experimental results revealed by POSCO are much more
realistic. It can be seen apparently that the results of the
present model are quite close to the results from POSCO. In
the case of no pulverized coal injection, the result of this
model is only 1C higher than the experimental result. The
gap increases from 0.025% to 0.86% with the increase of
pulverized coal injection, which is probably caused by the
error in calculation of the heating value of coal. Although
the RAFT in this model is not obtained as simply and directly
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 ISIJ International, Vol. 52 (2012), No. 12

Table 1. Composition of carbon-containing raw material (mass%). as raw materials optimization module, two different raw
H2 O Ash Vol Cfix C H N O S
materials consumptions module and user interface module
are added to the balance calculation. On the basis of the stat-
3.0 8.7 35.7 52.6526 83.3 5.6 2.2 8.5 0.5 ic model for the entire process, the zoned static model has
been developed for the melter-gasifier, which is helpful to
Table 2. Comparison of adiabatic flame temperature in the litera- predict the mass flow and heat flow information in each
ture and this model. zone. A good agreement is reached with key outputs. Its
found that the oxygen distribution ratio is of great signifi-
Pulverized coal Adiabatic flame temperature/C
injection/ cance to control the temperature profile in the melter-gasifier.
kgtHM 1 Siemens VAI10) JSW steel Ltd11) POSCO12) Present work The model allows optimization of the process and is thus
0 4 121.02 3 400 3 878 3 879
helpful for COREX operation.
50 3 675 3 677
REFERENCES
100 3 484 3 491
1) H. M. W. Delport: Ironmaking Steelmaking, 19 (1992), 183.
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49.
200 3 131 3 158 3) K. P. Prachethan, L. M. Garg and S. S. Gupta: Ironmaking Steelmaking,
33 (2006), 29.
4) P. Pichestapong and Y. K. Rao: Proc. of Intl. Symp. on Challenges
in Process Intensification at 34th Annual Conf. of Metallurgists of
as using the two empirical equations, it is suitable for dif- CIM, ed. by C. A. Pickles, P. J. Hancock and J. R. Wynnckyj, Canadian
ferent types of coals and injection quantities. It can thus pre- Inst. of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum, Canada, (1996), 67.
5) P. P. Kumar, L. M. Garg and S. S. Gupta: Ironmaking Steelmaking,
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A COREX static model based on a group of mass and 10) W. Ying, C. Wang and Z. Zou: China Metall., 19 (2009), 13.
11) P. P. Kumar, A. Dasu and M. Ranjan: Ironmaking Steelmaking, 35
heat balance equations has been developed. In order to pro- (2008), 108.
vide more help to plant operation, the new functions such 12) Y. Zhe, N. Xu and Y. Pu: China Patent, No. 1784499, (2006).

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