Pneumatic Conveying System For Pulverised Coal Injection Into Blast Furnaces

By Mark Coleman and Paul Markwell, Schenck Process UK Ltd

Clyde Process, now part of the Schenck Process Group, has a long history of developing coal injection systems into blast furnace tuyeres having worked with British Steel (now TATA) since the early 1980’s. Clyde Process was one of the originators of pneumatic conveying systems to use coal for injection that have now been employed worldwide from small mini blast furnaces through to the world’s largest furnace at Shagang in China.

The PCI system is based on pulverised coal being fed to the individual tuyeres of the blast furnace in combination with the air blast for combustion in the furnace race way. The advantages of this system are:

• Reduces the coke burden required
• Reduces the total cost of production as coal is more economical
• More environmentally friendly to use than coke. As a result pulverised coal injection (PSI) is now an industry norm.