Potential for Increased Scrap Melting in a BOF

Maximizing the amount of scrap in the basic oxygen furnace (BOF) is a feasible solution to effectively utilize the chemical energy from the process. The present study focuses on analyzing the dependency of input scrap quantity on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions using a mass and energy balance that has been validated against plant data. The results indicate that when the post-combustion ratio is raised from 0.12 to 0.20, the percentage of scrap in the feed can be increased from 25% to 29%. In addition to that, a nomogram is constructed to express the scrap percentage of the feed as a function of blast furnace hot metal chemistry, BOF heat loss, and total global warming potential for producing a fixed quantity of liquid steel.