New Refractory Materials Improve China's Iron and Steel Industry

Compared with the international advanced level, China's iron and steel industry has a relatively high energy consumption. The energy consumption per ton of steel production is 20%-40% higher than the international level and 320kg higher than Japan's standard coal. It can be seen that China's iron and steel industry has high energy consumption and great potential for energy saving and consumption reduction. Therefore, it is of great significance to do a good job of energy conservation and consumption reduction to improve the competitiveness of China's steel industry.

The significance of new refractories

In the past 20 years, the output and varieties of China's steel industry have developed greatly. In order to adapt to this development, after the construction of the “7th Five-Year Plan”, “Eighth Five-Year Plan” and “Ninth Five-Year Plan” period, China’s refractories continued to upgrade its varieties and equipment, and its varieties increased more than a dozen major categories totaling more than 100 The brand changed the structure of the four major varieties of traditional clay, high aluminum, siliceous, and magnesium products. According to the development priorities of the iron and steel industry during the “10th Five-Year Plan” period, although the steel production will not have significant growth, the ratio of steel to continuous casting and refining will continue to increase, and the equipment will continue to be large-scaled and modernized. These characteristics of the development of the iron and steel industry have prompted the refractories to continue to improve the quality of products and expand the varieties, while at the same time producing certain refractories with specific functions around energy conservation and consumption reduction.

New refractories development trend

In recent years, the promotion of new processes and new technologies for steel production, as well as the requirements for energy conservation, consumption reduction and environmental protection, have all put forward more specific requirements for new types of refractory materials. From the perspective of future trends, new types of refractory materials will include high-performance structural refractory materials and functional refractory materials.

Structural refractories

The overall development trend of structural refractory materials will be high purity, densification, precision, popularity of carbon-containing refractories, composite and amorphous oxidized and non-oxide materials. In particular, the monolithic refractories will have a relatively large application market in the future. This is because it has the advantages of short production cycle, energy conservation, good integrity, strong adaptability, and comprehensive use. The technological development trend of the monolithic refractories itself has the following aspects.

(1) Material. In recent years, the material of monolithic refractories is being developed from neutral and acidic oxide materials to basic oxide materials and oxides and non-oxide composites, from low-purity to high-purity development. The raw materials used are natural. Refractory materials are mainly developed into synthetic refractory materials;

(2) Combination method. In recent years, the combination of monolithic refractories follows the direction of hydration bonding→chemical bonding→hydration bonding+agglomeration bonding→polymerization bonding→agglomeration and bonding;

(3) Operating performance. In recent years, the workability of monolithic refractories has evolved from difficult to thixotropic and then thixotropic. From the perspective of rheology, that is, from plastic-elastic to visco-plastic-elastic and visco-plastic;

(4) Mixing water consumption. In recent years, the amount of water used for the preparation of monolithic refractories is developing from high moisture to low moisture and no moisture.

Functional refractories

Functional refractories include high-performance insulating refractory materials, high emissivity energy-saving coatings, high thermal conductivity and highly conductive refractory materials, and high-performance rapid thermal storage refractory materials. High-performance heat-insulating refractory materials include refractory fiber products, ultra-fine microporous lightweight bricks, lightweight monolithic refractory materials, etc. These materials have low thermal conductivity, and the use of such materials when laying masonry walls can significantly reduce the number of furnace bodies. The heat dissipation and heat storage losses have a significant energy saving effect.