What are the Advantages of Oxygen Injection before the BF Blower?

There are two ways to provide VPSA enriched oxygen to blast furnace:

The First approach is oxygen enrichment after the blower, i.e., the low-pressure oxygen at the outlet of VPSA oxygen plant is pressurized by an oxygen compressor to 6Bar(G), then mixed with ambient air in the cold air pipe at the blast furnace blower outlet to achieve enriched oxygen.

The second one is oxygen injection before the blower. Oxygen is directly fed into the blast furnace blower and then into the blast furnace making use of the pressure difference between the outlet of VPSA plant and the blower inlet. In order to fully mix oxygen and air, an oxygen distributor is required at the front of the blower inlet.

The advantages of oxygen injection before the blower are:

1. Energy Saving

The oxygen injection before the blower saves the energy needed for oxygen compression. Although it is still a controversial issue whether the oxygen injection before the blower shares the blower's capacity, energy conservation of the technology is affirmative even though the saving amount shows slight differences for each company.

2. Investment Saving

Oxygen compressor is spared in oxygen injection before the blower, which reduces the one-time investment. At the same time, low-pressure oxygen as the conveying medium cuts the manufacturing and construction cost when implementing the low-pressure standards.

3. Safety Assurance

There is no need to install decompression and explosion-proof equipment. Thus, safety of the system is strengthened.