Elkem, an overseas subsidiary of Bluestar, has recently announced that it has received 9.2 million Norwegian krone (equivalent to 7.46 million yuan) financial aid from the Research Council of Norway for the research of “high-temperature-resistant silicon metals”. The project will analyze different types of silicon metals to understand the influence of their properties on the operation of the blast furnace and improve the utilization efficiency of raw materials and energy for silicon and ferrosilicon while they are processed in the blast furnace.
The “high-temperature-resistant silicon metal” research project is a collaboration between the Sintef and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Headed by Aasgeir Valderhaug, director of the Elkem Technology Center, it draws the participation of researchers from the Elkem Technology Center and the silicon metal research team of Elkem Silicon Materials. The test of the project has been launched, and the full test will be conducted at the plant of Elkem Silicon Materials.
According to Mr. Valderhaug, silicon metals with good chemical purity and “properties suitable for the blast furnace” are in extreme scarcity and experimenting new-type silicon metals in the blast furnace might sometimes result in serious errors with the operation of the blast furnace, so the producer needs to better understand the difference between good and bad silicon metals while they are used as the raw materials for the blast furnace.
The project team will study the properties of and how to measure silicon metals and try to improve the utilization efficiency of raw materials and turn silicon metals of poor quality into good ones by adjusting the way the blast furnace operates. Based on the basic analysis, small-scale experiment and weeks-long full test, researchers will look for new methods to experiment different types of silicon metals, so as to find the optimal way to mix silicon metals with other raw materials. Another goal of the project is to find the way to better the operation of the blast furnace when different types of silicon metals are added to it.
With the budget of 23.2 million Norwegian krone (equivalent to 18.81 million yuan), the research project is expected to concluded in 2019.