Slag wool manufacturing from blast furnace slag

Abstract

Slag wool is the most expensive and valuable product of blast furnace slag processing. Slag wool is in great demand nowadays. The article highlights the factors influencing the mineral wool quality: chemical composition that determines the acidity of the module, the temperature of the molten slag and the required slag jet thickness consistency. Mineral wool is produced by blowing air or steam into a jet of molten slag. As a result of it the slag crushes into droplets stretching. The resulting wool contains 5% slag and 95% air. The quality of the obtained slag wool depends on the module acidity of the slag. The blast furnace slags of «Ilyich iron and steel works of Mariupol» and «Azovstal iron & steel works» are the main (short) slags – they give short fibers. To obtain high-quality long fiber wool it is necessary to add admixtures into basic blast furnace slag to reduce its basicity. As a result of the fuel and energy rising prices and the necessity to reduce the slag wool cost it is necessary to develop a new technology with fiery-liquid slag, with the removal of iron compounds and sulphur from the melts and the introduction of corrective additives to improve the quality of slag wool. Good thermal conductivity (about 0,03 kcal/m∙h∙°C) and other indicators (resistance, volume weight) make it possible to use the materials from slag wool (pads, rigid and semi-rigid plates) as heat and sound insulating materials