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Show - the investigation of the effect of the various technical methods of beneficiation of blast furnace gas £8.]. These examples are by no means exhaustive and clearly it is beyond the scope of this paper to present detailed results from all investigations. However, in the following paragraphs, two examples are described in some detail in order that the reader may have greater insight into the potential scope and the relevance of the work carried out by the. IFRF. With res- "• pect to the relevance, the first of the examples chosen is concerned primarily with energy conservation and the second with the reduction of atmospheric pollution through combustion modification. In both cases, the success of the investigations was enhanced by the internationally co-operative character of the IFRF. The use of blast furnace gas in the steel industry This investigation, which was funded jointly by the European Coal and Steel Community and the IFRF members, related to problems of utilization of blast furnace gas (BFG) as an alternative to rich fossil fuels such as natural gas (NG) or heavy fuel oil. This is of obvious importance for the future frcm the points of view-of conservation of rich' fuels and of basic economy. . • The utilization of BFG within an integrated steelworks or, for example, within an adjacent power station is traditional. Nevertheless, because cf its basically low calorific value and hydrogen deficiency, it is a gas which is relatively difficult to utilize in the technical sense. Thus, particularly for use in high temperature furnaces, it is usually necessary to "upgrade" or beneficiate the gas, typically by preheating both the combustion air and the gas or by enriching neat BFG with coke oven gas. Frequently both strategies are employed. In addition there is the more recent possibility of enriching the combustion air with oxygen which in the last decade has become more abundant in steelworks. The problem therefore is hew to determine which is the best approach from both the technical and economic viewpoints. It was on this basis that the investigation was designed and executed. In order to compare the various methods of BFG beneficiation, it was concluded initially that an experimental study was necessary using the furnace nr. 1. To simulate the various furnaces in which BFG may be fired, the experimental furnace was modified to incorporate a controlled but variable temperature hearth and fired at a nominal thermal input of 2 MW (a typical steelworks high temperature furnace loading). £8] J.B. MICHEL and R. PAYNE: The use of blast furnace gas as a fuel in high temperature furnaces of the steel industry. ECSC project 7210 EA/601; IFRF Doc.nr. F 01/a/100 - 10 - |