There are several ways to reduce the cost of stainless steel production:
1. Simplify and improve the current general EAF+AOD stainless steel production technology, including improving the design of the electric arc furnace, in the EAF, oxygen blowing or oxygen blowing plus argon for decarburization or decarburization and desulfurization in order to shorten the smelting time;
2. The spray gun design can also be improved, and the structure of multiple spray guns can be adopted;
3. A system that uses real-time online detection of temperature and chemical composition in the AOD furnace;
4. Add low-cost raw materials such as nickel oxide and chrome ore to the AOD furnace to replace expensive alloy materials.
5. Development of new stainless steel grades, such as the development of nitrogen-containing austenitic stainless steel, high-manganese high-nitrogen austenitic stainless steel, austenitic/ferritic duplex stainless steel, super ferritic stainless steel and other cost-effective stainless steels.
6. The shaft furnace process is adopted.
In the production of stainless steel, ferrochrome alone accounts for about 40% of the production cost. At present, the domestic iron and steel raw material market generally uses submerged electric furnaces when processing ferrochromium alloys, which consumes a lot of coke and electricity. In addition, the domestic chromium ore resources are limited and the price of ferrochromium alloys remains high, which directly increases the production cost of stainless steel. In the production of stainless steel, ferrochrome alone accounts for about 40% of the production cost. At present, the domestic iron and steel raw material market generally uses submerged electric furnaces when processing ferrochromium alloys, which consumes a lot of coke and electricity. In addition, the domestic chromium ore resources are limited and the price of ferrochromium alloys remains high, which directly increases the production cost of stainless steel. Baosteel has carried out the research and development of the shaft furnace method for producing chromium molten iron. It can directly select cheap chromite powder to process and produce chromium-containing molten iron for stainless steel smelting. This can not only effectively reduce the cost of stainless steel production, but also greatly reduce power consumption. It can also digest iron-containing dust in the production process and reduce solid waste emissions.