A pear-shaped furnace, lined with heat resistant (refractory) material, that converts molten iron and recycled steel (scrap) into new steel.
Blast Furnace
A towering cylinder lined with heat-resistant (refractory) bricks, used by integrated steel mills to smelt iron from iron ore.
Blast Furnace Gas
A low-calorific-value gaseous fuel that is generated in the blast furnace during the iron reduction process. Blast furnace gas is used as a fuel for coke ovens, blast furnace stoves and boilers.
Coating
The process of covering steel with another material (e.g., tin, chrome, zinc and aluminum-zinc), primarily for corrosion resistance.
Coke By-product Plant
Processes cooled coke oven gas (liquid condensate and gas) to recover chemicals and to condition the gas for use as a fuel.
Coke Oven Battery
Consists of a group of ovens connected by common walls to convert coal into coke by distillation. Generally, a coke oven battery will consist of 45 to 100 ovens.
Coke Oven Gas
A medium-calorific-value gaseous fuel that is generated when volatile materials are driven out of coal during the coking process. Coke oven gas is used as a fuel for coke ovens, blast furnace stoves, reheat furnaces and boilers.
Cokemaking
A process where coal is heated in the absence of air to produce metallurgical coke.
Cold Forming
Process, subsequent to hot rolling, where primarily flat-rolled products are compressed between electrically powered rolls in order to change the shape of the steel progressively to the final desired form.
Continuous Casting
The process whereby molten steel is solidified into a “semi- finished” billet, bloom or slab for subsequent rolling.
Direct Reduced Iron (DRI)
The product of an iron ore briquette or pellet that has been heated to a temperature of 1000-1200oC in a chemically reducing atmosphere. The iron content of the resultant product is typically 90-95%. DRI is used as a scrap substitute in EAF steelmaking and is sometimes added to the blast furnace or BOF charge.
Electric Arc Furnace (EAF)
Steelmaking furnace where scrap is generally 100% of the charge, but liquid iron, DRI or other scrap sources could also be used. Heat is supplied from electricity that arcs from the graphite electrodes to the metal bath, usually supplemented by oxy fuel burners. Furnaces may be either alternating current or direct current.
Facility
A facility (or contiguous facility) is defined as all buildings, equipment, structures and stationary items that are located on a single site, or on contiguous sites or adjacent sites, that are owned or operated by the same person andthat function as a single integrated site, including wastewater collection systems thatrelease treated or untreated wastewater into surface waters.
Flux
An iron cleaning agent. Limestone and lime react with impurities within the metallic pool toform a slag that floats to the top of the relatively heavier (and nowmore pure) liquid iron or steel.
Hot Rolling
Process where steel slabs, blooms, billets or beams are compressed between electrically powered rolls in order to change the shape of the steel progressively to the final desired form.
Ilmenite
A weak magnetic crystalline titanium-iron oxide mineral (FeTiO3).
Ilmenite Reduction Furnace
A refractory-lined vessel thatsmelts ilmenite ore to titanium slag. Iron is a by-product of this process.
Ladle Metallurgy Furnace
An intermediate steel processing unit that further refines the chemistry and temperature of molten steel while still inthe ladle. The ladle metallurgy step comes after the steel is melted andrefined in the EAF or BOF but before the steel is sent to the continuous caster.
Molten Metal
Liquid pig iron produced in the blast furnace or ilmenite reduction furnace, or liquid steel produced inBOF or EAF steelmaking
Reheat Furnace
A refractory-lined furnace used to normalize steel shapes directly from continuous casting or heat cold steel shapes from storage to the hot rolling temperature. The steel shapes move in a continuous stream.
Release
Includes discharge, spray, inject, inoculate, abandon, deposit, spill, leak, seep, pour, emit, empty, throw, dump, place and exhaust.
Shaft Furnace
A refractory-lined vertical cylinder where iron pellets or other materials are fed into the top of the furnace through a large number of distributor pipes. The distributor pipes reduce the possibility of size separation and gas channelling.
Slag
A molten layer formed on top of a bath of liquid metal or matte when impurities in the charge combine with the flux.
VOCs
Photochemically reactive hydrocarbons, and therefore exclude compounds such as methane, ethane and several chlorinated organics. Also known as reactive organic gases (ROG) or non- methane volatile organic compounds(N-MVOC).
