STEELMAKING

De-dusting plants for electric

arc furnaces
The efficient cleaning of EAF off-gas by a combination of post combustion of the primary off-gas,
fast cooling in a quenching tower and use of dioxin absorbents prior to dust filtering, enables the
dioxin concentrations in the waste gases to be reduced below statutory limits.

AUTHORS: Giuseppe Pansera and Niccolò Griffini

VAI Pomini Srl

T he pollutants produced by the EAF process: dust

(heavy metal oxides), and gaseous compounds (CO,
nitrous oxides [NOx], volatile organic compounds, [VOC])
and dioxins and furans, pose environmental problems, so
efficient methods to reduce these emissions are essential.
EAF de-dusting plants normally comprise a primary off-gas
line, which receives the emissions directly from the furnace
cover, and a secondary off-gas line, which collects all other
emissions, eg, produced during charging and tapping
casting. With this approach it is possible to achieve dust r Fig.1 Typical off-gas treatment plant for EAF
removal efficiencies of 95–99% over the casting cycle.
` Next, the hot off-gas enters the water cooling duct
CONTROL OF OFF-GAS (WCD) [4], which cools it to 500–800°C, depending
The heart of the de-dusting plant is the filter. The two main on the length of the duct
types in use (for economic and environmental reasons) are: ` After leaving the WCD, the hot gas is further cooled
a fabric filter with a compressed air cleaning system (pulse- to 200–300°C [5] by a forced draught gas cooler
jet filter, mostly used in Europe), and a reverse air cleaning (FDC), a natural draught cooler (NDC) or a
system (bag-house, mostly used in North America). quenching tower (QT). The lower limit of this
A typical de-dusting plant configuration is shown in temperature range is imposed by economic reasons,
Figure 1: because the cost of any cooler increases
exponentially below 200°C.
` The primary off-gas (~1,600°C) is extracted directly ` The direct evacuation control damper, which is usually
from the EAF roofcover [1] and collected by the situated after the cooling system, controls the quantity
water-cooled elbow of the exhausting flue of gas extracted from the EAF in order to avoid
` A fixed duct separated from the furnace, sometimes excessive heat absorption from the furnace during
equipped with a mobile end in order to permit the those phases where the generation of gas is limited.
opening of the furnace roofcover [2], is situated in ` The primary gas at 200–300°C is then blended with
front of the elbow when the furnace is in the secondary gas at 50–70°C coming from the canopy
horizontal position for melting/refining, and collects hood [6] situated over the furnace, to reach
and blends the gas coming out from the elbow with temperatures below 130°C, suitable for gas filtration
the ambient air sucked through the gap between the in a fabric (polyester bag) filter [7].
two ducts. The function of this additional suction is
to introduce a quantity of oxygen sufficient to burn PRIMARY DE-DUSTING
the entire CO still present and to cool down the gas. The primary de-dusting line absorbs most of the emissions
` The absorbed off-gas enters the post-combustion during operations with the EAF roof closed. Its efficiency is
chamber or drop-out box [3] (so-called because directly related to the pressure drop in the furnace, and
MILLENNIUM STEEL 2005

separation of the larger particles occurs here in order is maintained by the de-dusting plant. Nevertheless its
to avoid undesired sediments along the pipelines efficiency is limited by unexpected pressure increases in
after the chamber) the furnace, due principally to sliding of the scrap, a

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a generic word for a combination of 75 PCDDs

(polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins) and 135
PCDFs (polychlorinated dibenzo furans). The
problem of dioxin emissions is critical
generally in EAF steelmaking processes, but
the problem becomes more relevant in
furnaces with scrap pre-heating. VAIM has
studied dioxin generation processes and
reduction techniques for the off-gas. These
studies show that the concentration of dioxin
in the primary off-gas stream is about 10 times
higher than in the secondary off-gas stream,
r Fig.2 Temperature path and dioxin reaction velocity
despite the fact that the primary stream comes
directly from the combustion area where dioxins should
reactions in the bath or addition of additives. For this be destroyed at high temperatures. These high
reason it is necessary that fume extraction via the concentrations arise because during the primary gas
secondary canopy hood of the furnace is maintained. cooling phase, dioxin re-forms as a result of the reaction
between the organic and chlorine compounds at
SECONDARY DE-DUSTING temperatures between 280 and 600°C. This process is
The secondary de-dusting line absorbs the emissions called De novo Synthesis and has a maximum
coming from the canopy hoods situated over the furnace, productivity in the range 300–500°C (see Figure 2). For
which can have one or more suction points inside a bigger this reason it is common to find high dioxin
hood for more homogeneous suction. The correct sizing of concentrations in the cooled primary off-gas.
a canopy hood is based on the geometry of the shaft and Quantitatively, the phenomenon is proportional to the
fluid mechanics of the off-gas passing into the canopy duration of this condition, hence the speed of cooling is
hood. Even if correctly dimensioned, the efficiency of extremely important.
secondary de-dusting can be considerably influenced by
the presence of horizontal air movements, due to opening COOLING OF PRIMARY OFF-GAS
of the building, other warm air sources present in the The cooling of the primary off-gas can be performed in
building, or the presence of the charging crane. For this different ways, of which the principal ones are the FDC
reason the correct sizing of a secondary canopy hood is and the QT:
increasingly performed by fluid dynamics computer
simulation programs, but a guarantee of 100% collection The forced draught gas cooler The most common types
is unlikely except by unreasonable and uneconomic over- of FDC used in EAF de-dusting plants are the Tubular heat
sizing of the de-dusting plant. exchanger and the Cross-stream Tube/pocket heat
An alternative approach is to use an elephant house: a exchanger. The second type is of interest because of the
total closure that isolates the furnace building and reduction in maintenance costs compared to a traditional
evacuates the emissions through a cowl situated on the tubular type design. In the primary de-dusting plant the
roof. For this reason the openings of the building should be cooler is typically situated after the WCD. The cooler can
sealed and the entire furnace module totally enclosed cool off-gas from temperatures of around 550–600°C
during all the process phases. Also, the sliding doors for down to around 200–300°C. The cooler inlet gas
scrap charging must be opened only for the time strictly temperature is strongly limited by the material property, in
necessary for this operation. In this case the capacity of the this case Corten or 16Mo3.
canopy must be sized in order to ensure not only the The tube/pocket heat exchanger functions by cooling the
suction of the fumes emitted during charging and tapping, hot inlet gas in one or two passages. Ambient air is forced
but also sufficient air exchange inside the module to through the tubes in order to assist convection currents to
maintain working conditions. This normally means the remove the heat from the gas. The name of this exchanger
design of a plant with the same maximum capacity of a results from the 90° angle in which the direction of flow of
normal plant, but with a higher average capacity. the two streams (hot and cooler one) cross each other. The
cooling air is forced to flow through the tubes/pockets by
MILLENNIUM STEEL 2005

DIOXIN using fans installed on the side of the cooler.

Of the various pollutants generated during metallurgical Quenching towers Dioxin regeneration can be
processes, dioxin is one of the most dangerous. Dioxin is minimised by cooling the gas very quickly, in order to

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Pollutants Concentrations Flow

Measured values Limit values Calculated values Limit values
Dust (mg/Nm3) 4.6 5 2.8 (kg/h) 3(kg/h)
O2 % 20.3 - - -
CO2 % 0.5 - - -
CO (mg/Nm3) 80 200 58.7 (kg/h)
SO2 (mg/Nm3) <3 - <2.2 -
NO2 (mg/Nm3) 12 - 8.8 -
NOx * (mg/Nm3) 16 100 11.7 (kg/h) 20 (kg/h)
VOC total ** (mg/Nm3) 2 - 1.47 (kg/h) -
VOC nm ** (mg/Nm3) 1 - 0.73 (kg/h) -
HCl (mg/Nm3) 0.2 - 146.8 (kg/h) -
HF (mg/Nm3) 0.2 - 146.8 (kg/h) -
Metals
Group 1 (1) (mg/Nm3) 0.12 0.15 68.8 (g/h) 75 (g/h)
Aggregate 2 (2) (mg/Nm3) 0.003 0.1 2.2 (g/h) 9 (g/h)
Aggregate 3 (3) (mg/Nm3) <LD 1.0 <LD 40 (g/h)
Aggregate 4 (4) (mg/Nm3) 1.136 5.0 834 (g/h) 400
Fe (mg/Nm3) 1.67 - 1226 (g/h) -
Ti (mg/Nm3) 0.003 - 146.8 (g/h) -
PCDD/PCDF (pg/Nm3) 73 500 0.054 (mg/h) 0.25

* expressed in equivalents of NO2 r Table 1 Dedusting efficiency data using pulse jet and QT
** expressed in equivalents of C
(1): Pb particulates + gas
(2): Cd+Hg+Ti particulates + gas
(3): As+Se+Te particulates + gas
(4): Sb, Cr, Co, Cu, Sn, Mn, Ni, V, Zn particulates + gas

reduce the time it remains at the temperatures for De

novo synthesis. This chemical-physical principle is
optimised in the QT, which provides rapid cooling of the
primary off-gas by water quenching with fine atomised
sprays, so that the gas temperatures decrease rapidly to
250–280°C. In the most common type of quenching
tower used by Decos (VAI Group Technological Center of
Competence for EAF dedusting) for EAF de-dusting
plants (3.2–6m diameter and 10–15m high), the hot gas
enters the QT at the bottom (see Figure 3) through a
large central box, in which the gas velocity is reduced
and the flow is equalised. After the inlet, the off-gas is
then immediately cooled by the evaporation of the
atomised water that is injected by means of lances in the
lower part of the tower. The cooled and dry off-gas exits
from the upper part the QT, blended with the cooler r Fig.3 Quenching tower
secondary off-gases then filtered in a pulse-jet filter.
Dioxin distribution using QT is shown in Figure 4. temperature is more than 600°C and the setting up of an
Because of its efficiency the quenching tower is the automatic regulation of the cooling water injection is
preferred primary gas cooling system for both new and stable (see Figure 5).
revamped plants. The change from an FDC to a QT can be
executed without major changes to the complete de- Lignite injection Although the performance of the
MILLENNIUM STEEL 2005

dusting system and the performance improvements are quenching tower is good, it is difficult to guarantee the
excellent. Optimisation of the QT has meant several plant achievement dioxin maxima of 0.1ng/Nm3 continuously.
improvements that ensure the off-gas inlet QT Further improvements can be obtained by injecting a

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PCDD/F adsorption efficiency [%]

r Fig.7 Dioxin absorption efficiency as a function of
r Fig.4 Dioxin distribution using QT filter temperature and absorbent injection
PCDD/F concentration in the cleaning gas (ngl-TEQ per Nm3)

r Fig.8 Gas temperature vs time in an FDC and QT

removal is directly proportional to the decrease in the

off-gas filter inlet temperature. In order to reach the
desired dioxin removal levels, it would be necessary to
have a filter inlet temperature of less than 80°C if a
lignite injection system is not used. For traditional
r Fig.5 Dioxin measurements pre and post quench optimisation
furnaces, the dioxin value present in off-gases reachable
with this system is about 0.1ng/Nm3.

COMPARISON OF FDC AND QT

Although the time of residence of the hot gas in both
systems is approximately the same (FDC: gas velocity
(ng/l TEQ-per Nm3)

around 20m/s, length 25m, therefore t = 1.25s, QT: gas

velocity around 8m/s, length 10m, therefore t = 1.25s),
the cooling curves are completely different (see Figure 8).
The QT, by using fast cooling, is much more efficient
in reducing dioxin regeneration. This has been
demonstrated by PCDD/F measurements at a plant
where the original FDC has been substituted by a QT.
The quenching tower is not the only system to achieve
low dioxin values, but it is important to note that faster
cooling reduces the quantity of dioxin in the off-gases
r Fig.6 Concentration of dust emitted in atmosphere, blue using QT
prior to the filter, thus the amount of carbon (lignite)
with absorbents injection, red without absorbents injection required for injection is significantly lower than in a plant
with FDC. A further advantage is that existing plants
absorbents into the gas stream, before the filter which equipped with FDC can be easily revamped, with
aggregate to bigger and more easily filterable dust additional advantages of increased primary suction
particles (see Figure 6). The injected material is porous, capacity and often with a reduction of the space required
very finely milled lignite coke, in order to get a high (see Figure 9). This suction capacity increase in the
surface-volume ratio to promote dioxin precipitation. primary side of the de-dusting system is achieved
MILLENNIUM STEEL 2005

Injection is via nozzles before the filter and after the without changing the main fans.
cyclone, typically between 150 and 500 mg/Nm3. Also, as the maximum inlet temperature of a QT is
It can be seen from Figure 7 that the tendency of dioxin 1,000°C, versus 600°C in an FDC, this results in a shorter

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r Fig.9 Substitution of an
FDC (a) by a QT (b) in an
existing installation

primary WCD and greater flexibility in the plant design

and installation. The maintenance on the QT is usually
lower (systematic check and cleaning of the lance nozzles)
compared to an FDC, which has a tendency for the ducts
or pockets to clog.

POLLUTANT REMOVAL EFFICIENCY

In modern EAF off-gas systems it is possible to achieve a
dust concentration of less than 5mg/Nm3 in the
atmospheric emissions with a fabric pulse-jet filter. A
further reduction of this dust concentration will not
significantly reduce the dioxin content of the cleaned gas.
Significant improvements in dioxin removal can be
achieved by injecting absorbent material as well as
decreasing the off-gas filter inlet temperature.
The efficiencies achieved by modern de-dusting plants
are shown in Table 1 from a recent analysis of a VAIM-
DECOS installation, in which a pulse-jet filter and a QT
were utilised. This plant operates a 70t furnace, with a
productivity of 100t/h.

CONCLUSIONS
For the efficient cleaning of EAF off-gas, a combination of
thermal treatment, as post combustion of the primary
off-gas, fast cooling in a quenching tower, and absorbent-
injection, enables the dioxin concentration to be reduced
to levels below the specified limits. The technology for
minimising the dioxin present in off-gas described in this
paper is the most efficient and economic solution and
features the latest state of the art technology. MS

Giuseppe Pansera is Head of the Technological

Department and Niccolò Griffini is Project Manager
(BU dedusting) at VAI Pomini SrI, Milan, Italy

CONTACT: [email protected]