Steel making : basic oxygen process

The basic oxygen process for steel production

Mining of the raw material is done by blasting large areas that contain tagenite rocks. These rocks are
then transported to grinding site and ground to a powder by a grinder whereby crude iron is extracted by
powerful magnets and stored according to origin. Coal is converted to coke to fuel iron making furnaces
by crushing large quantities of it and baking it in air tight ovens for 12-18 hours then removing it from the
oven as solid carbon fuel which is separated into small coke and large coke. The large coke is used for
blast furnace while small coke is used for sintering process. Iron ore (FE 2O3), coal (C) and limestone are
now dispensed carefully and spread under a strand moving under a combustion hood to form a material
called sinter or pellets.
Limestone which is used to remove impurities is added with Fuel and sinter to the blast furnace. The
superheated air is used to combust the coke which intensifies the heat to about

2700 thus changing

the raw materials into molten iron and slag which is then removed. the limestone acts as an absorbent for
all the unwanted impurities within the blast furnace , forming the slag .the molten iron called pig iron is
then tapped and desulphurized by injecting lime powder and then transferred into giant ladles and
transported to the steel plant containing the basic oxygen furnace where steel making actually starts.
Steel scrap as well as the pig iron is placed into the basic oxygen furnace and highly pure oxygen at 1500

is blown into the mix at supersonic speeds forming molten called the bath which is then analysed
to determine the alloying elements and reagents necessary for deoxidation and desulphurization the iron
ore. Aluminum is added to the bath and used to deoxidise the bath and to add ductility, then the molten
steel and slag are poured out of the converter into a ladle separately, tapping the steel first. Within the
basic oxygen furnace the materials become molten steel.
The liquid steel is then taped into ladles and placed into a vacuum degasser which stirs the steel using an
inert gas ensuring the distribution of temperature as well as removing impurities that are channelled to the
slag . The molten liquid at 3000

is then placed over a funnels and poured into a caster containing

moulds which they will be cooled and shaped. The shape of the moulds determines the shape of the semifinished materials. Once the steel exists the moulds as slabs it can be cut into sections and either delivered
to a customer as is or stacked away for further processing.