Review of Innovative Energy Savings Technology for the Electric Arc Furnace

A review of the energy innovations for the electric arc furnace (EAF) steelmaking route is discussed. Preheating of scrap using vertical and horizontal shafts that have been commercially successful in lowering the energy consumption to as much as 90 kWh/t reaching almost the operational limit to heating input scrap materials into the EAF is discussed. Bucket-type and twin-shell preheaters have also shown to be effective in lowering the overall power consumption by 60 kWh/t, but these have been less effective than the vertical shaft-type preheaters. Beyond the scrap preheating technologies, the utilization of waste heat of the slags from the laboratory scale to the pilot scale has shown possible implementation of a granulation and subsequent heat exchange with forced air for energy recovery from the hot slags. Novel techniques to increase metal recovery have shown that laboratory-scale testing of localized Fe concentration into the primary spinel crystals was possible allowing the separation of an Fe-rich crystal from an Fe-depleted amorphous phase. A possible future process for converting the thermal energy of the CO/CO2 off-gases from the EAF into chemical energy was introduced.