The steel production process is very important due to the wide application of this metal in industries such as automobile manufacturing, construction, military industries and many other industries. The history of steel production in Iran dates back to more than 50 years ago, and due to its capacity to supply raw materials and produce steel, Iran can become one of the hubs of steel production in the world. For complete information, we suggest you read the fundamental analysis training article.
Since steel has wide applications in human life today, studying and investigating its production chain is also of particular importance. The meaning of the steel production chain is actually the cycle during which the raw materials of steel production are explored and extracted and converted into final products such as concentrate, pellets, sponge iron, beams, ingots and other products.
Our country, Iran, has rich and numerous iron ore mines, and steel producing industries also operate there. Therefore, it is not dependent on other countries in terms of supplying raw materials and manufacturing factories, and the steel production chain in Iran is complete. Therefore, the steel production industry in Iran brings a lot of added value and is considered one of the profitable industries.
But in countries where the raw materials of this industry are not available and they import them, or where the raw materials are available but there are no factories to produce them, the steel production process has no economic justification and does not bring added value.
To produce steel, during a process, iron ore is heated and melted in a furnace, after which impurities are removed and carbon is added. In the steel industry, there are 2 methods for producing steel, both of which are used in Iran.
A furnace with a height between 30 and 80 meters, whose inner wall is made of refractory bricks and its outer body is made of steel sheet. In this method, fuel (usually coke) is poured into the furnace along with iron ore (in the form of pellets and lumps) and with the help of blowing air, it burns and turns the iron ore into molten iron.
1. First, iron ore is extracted from the mine by blasting; Then, these iron ores are turned into lumps and pellets by a stone crusher.
2. After extracting and preparing iron ore, iron ore should be entered into the furnace along with coking coal.
3. All these materials are injected into the furnace and after being heated (by fuel combustion and air blowing) they become molten iron (pig iron).
4. This crude iron, which is the result of the blast furnace process, is called cast iron, which has a purity of 95%. In the next step, this impure raw iron is transformed into molten steel by removing impurities and adding oxygen (the purification process is carried out in a furnace called Converter).
5. This molten steel is now transferred to the casting department where it becomes steel ingots.
For many years, steel production using the blast furnace method has been one of the most important methods in the field of steel production, and currently more than 90% of the steel required in the world is produced by this method. The blast furnace steel production process is highly efficient in terms of production rate, but it requires high quality raw materials.
Steel is produced in the blast furnace by the combustion of coke and coal, and due to the decrease in the resources of coking coals, the price of coke is increasing. Also, the raw material preparation steps of this process, such as sintering and coking, impose a high cost on the steel industry.
The direct reduction process is one of the new methods for iron production, in which iron is produced without coking or even in some cases without lumping. In this method, the raw materials needed for production are converted into molten iron by electric current.
1. First, the iron ore must be regenerated and turned into sponge iron. Natural gas is used to do this in Iran. In this way, high temperature gas is introduced into the tank that contains pellets and during this process, sponge iron is produced.
2. After preparing the sponge iron, it is time to melt the raw materials. To do this, the sponge iron and scrap iron are placed in the electric arc furnace, and with the help of the electric current applied to the electric cathodes in the furnace, the materials become molten steel. .
3. In the last step, after separating the impurities in the molten steel, the final materials are transferred to the casting department.