2014 Volume 100 Issue 4 Pages 434-444
Progress of hot metal treatment technology in Japan and scientific researches which supported the technology are outlined.
To meet the increasingly severe customer requirements for steel properties, integrated steelmakers developed technologies for purifying molten steel, centering on the divided refining process, consisting of hot metal treatment, BOF decarburization and secondary refining. The hot metal treatment processes were put into practice at almost all steelworks in the 1980 s.
Since the 1990 s, all companies have improved and restructured the hot metal treatment facilities, aiming at not only improvement of refining efficiency so as to achieve a higher degree of purity steel with higher productivity at lower cost, but also reduction in slag volume with the environmental problems taken into consideration.
The directions in which hot metal treatment technology is to be pursued in the future are also commented briefly.
