Steelmaking with inert gas blowing
OwnerBartolomeo Morelloinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An oxygen steelmaking process utilizing also an inert gas to reduce the oxidation of a desired element such as chromium while permitting a desirably low carbon level to be reached, is characterized by recovery and recycling of the inert gas for economy. The inert gas is preferably argon and is preferably recovered by fractional distillation so as to reduce the nitrogen in the cycle stream and to recover and store and mix and reuse the argon and oxygen as desired. After removal of dust and carbon dioxide from the effluent gases from the converter, and prior to fractionation, 10-30% of the effluent gas is mixed with a minor part of the recovered oxygen and blown beneath the hood to limit air aspiration and to aid in the combustion of CO.
Claims6
An oxygen steelmaking process for the selective removal of carbon from a bath of molten steel in a converter having a hood, said bath containing 10-18% by weight of chromium, comprising blowing into said bath an oxygen-argon mixture, removing dust and CO.sub.2 from the effluent gases from said bath, passing one portion of said effluent gas beneath the hood of said converter thereby to reduce the flow of ambient air into said converter, and enriching another portion of said effluent gas in argon and recycling said enriched portion into said bath.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.