Dephosphorization of steel produced from sponge iron in the induction furnace

Abstract

A certain proportion of DRI produced in India is consumed for the steel production through the induction furnace route which provides for slag metal separation actuated by a mere melting of the DRI without any purification reactions. Government of India, owing to the poor quality of steel produced from DRI through the induction furnace route has stipulated that, steel to be marketed must contain less than 0.085% of combined sulphur and phosphorous. Therefore the DRI producing companies are initiating a method of dephosphorizing the steel produced from the induction furnace route. The present work is an attempt at dephosphorizing the steel produced in the induction furnace route from DRI which is high in phosphorous (upto 0.096% are common). A neutral lining is provided in the induction furnace and double slagging by the addition of Calcium Aluminate, Calcium Barium Aluminate and Barium Aluminate is adopted. It is observed that double slagging by the addition of Barium Aluminate yielded the best result so far as the dephosphorization is concern.