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Utilization of recovered lime-containing materials from pulp and paper industries as slag formers in stainless steel production

Time: Wed 2019-12-18 10.00

Location: Sal Sefström, Brinellvägen 23, Stockholm (English)

Subject area: Materials Science and Engineering

Doctoral student: Tova Jarnerud , Materialvetenskap

Opponent: Dr Robert Eriksson,

Supervisor: Docent Andrey Karasev, Materialens processteknologi; Professor Pär Jönsson, Materialens processteknologi

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Abstract

In recent years, major efforts have been made to develop a more circular economy. The desire to reuse, remanufacture and recycle materials are important for the development towards a sustainable society. An extended lifespan of materials helps to reduce the amount of waste kept in landfills, as well as to reduce the extraction of natural resources. Pulp and paper and steel industries are two of the largest export industrial sectors in Sweden. It is well known that the pulp and paper industries also generates large amounts of organic and inorganic wastes, of which a significant part is kept in landfills. Year by year deposit of wastes in landfills is becoming more difficult to handle and expensive due to stronger regulations and requirements regarding the environment. During Electric Arc Furnace (EAF) and Argon Oxygen Decarburization (AOD) stainless steelmaking operations, burnt lime (primary lime) is charged together with other slag forming materials in the furnace or converter to attain a specific basicity of the slag and to achieve purification from unwanted elements by chemical reactions in the steel.

However, a number of CaO-containing wastes from pulp/paper mills can be used as slag formers in steelmaking processes to replace the currently used burnt natural lime, since the use of this primary lime does not conform with the closing the loop idea that is being prioritized in modern society. This thesis presents results from preliminary experiments for examining the replacement of primary lime with secondary lime from pulp and paper production waste as slag formers in EAF and AOD converters. The obtained results showed a possibility of using up to 30% CaO from secondary lime as a replacement for primary lime in the EAF. Furthermore, the amount of ferrosilicon alloys additions can be decreased by up to 3kg/ton of steel. For the AOD process the use of secondary lime doesn´t have any negative effects on the decarburization process and reduction process. Furthermore, it has similar desulphurization functions as the primary lime. However, the phosphorus content in the metal was slightly increased. Thus, the replacement ratio of secondary lime will be limited by the acceptable phosphorus level in the final steel due to higher phosphorus content in wastes from pulp and paper mills compared to that in primary lime. Moreover, it was revealed during this study that slags from AOD converters can be used as binding agents for briquetting of these secondary lime materials. These results shows that waste/by products from two major industries can be used to make metallurgical briquettes, uniting two major industrial sectors in a circular symbiosis towards a more sustainable future.

urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-264244