Abstract:
The desulfurization in an Electric Arc Furnace plant is usually a challenge, since the income of sulfur in the steel is mainly through the impurities in the scrap, like oils, paints, dirt, organic materials and others. So, it is hard to predict how much sulfur there is going to be in the steel, and since the environment in the EAF is not favorable for the removal of sulfur, almost all of it must be carried out on the secondary refining process, implying sometimes, in high tap-to-tap in ladle furnaces, high use of ferroalloys and fluxes, which can cause productivity problems, increased costs, excessive refractory wear and other issues. In this work we present a successful case of an improvement of desulfurization rates on the ladle furnace of a EAF plant, through addition of a specifically designed sintered synthetic slag on tapping. Combining a fine control of the chemical composition along with the characteristics of the sintered slag it was possible to obtain good results. With the aid of computational thermodynamics, it was possible to study and validate the experimental results along with the theoretical basis.