Blast furnace coke quality in relation to petroleum coke addition

The incorporation of petroleum coke as an additive in industrial coking coal blends is a practice often used by steel companies. A suitable blast furnace coke produced by replacing part of the coking coal blend with a suitable petroleum coke (addition of 5 to 15%), was made by Great Lakes Carbon Corporation and successfully tested at several blast furnaces. This coke had lower reactivity, less ash and slightly higher sulfur content than coke made without the addition of petroleum coke. In contrast with these results, it has been reported in a BCRA study that additions of petroleum coke to a strong coking coal, above 5 wt%, increased coke reactivity. These differences may be explained on the basis of the coal or blend characteristics to which petroleum coke is added. Petroleum coke addition seems to give better results if the coal/blend has high fluidity. The present situation in Spain is favorable for the use of petroleum coke. So, a study of laboratory and semi-industrial scale was made to assess the possibility of using petroleum coke as an additive to the typical industrial coal blend coked by the Spanish Steel Company, ENSIDESA. The influence of the petroleum coke particle size was alsomore » studied to semi-industrial scale.« less