Authors:
Rae Hyeong Park | Chosun Refractories Co., Ltd | Republic of Korea
Sang-Bae Choi | Chosun Refractories Co., Ltd | Republic of Korea
Hyeon Oh Song | Chosun Refractories Co., Ltd | Republic of Korea
Sang Chae Jeon | Changwon National University | Republic of Korea
Eun Hee Kim | Changwon National University | Republic of Korea
For carbon neutrality, a new steelmaking process is currently being developed for iron ore to be reduced by hydrogen in a fluidized reduction furnace. Therefore, this study aims to provide the basis for furnace refractory design by investigating refractory property changes occurred in the hydrogen atmosphere.
Since refractory bricks are thermodynamically stable in a hydrogen atmosphere at 900 to 1100°C, We use vickers hardness test and SEM to find out the minute changes.
In this experiment, refractory brick is made by andalusite, mullite chamotte, and clay as raw materials and heated to 1100 °C in 100% hydrogen atmosphere for 72 hours. After that, we found out the brick’s strength was decreased and the color was changed to black. The hardness of the raw materials were increased.
By comparing the specimens between before and after heat treatment by SEM. We found out the reason of the decrease of brick strength is due to the cracks at the particles.
In addition to this, in order to prepare the basis for selecting refractory raw materials for a hydrogen atmosphere, we observed the changes of clay, andalusite, and mullite chamotte raw materials , respectively after heat treatment.