Abstract
The authors reported the results concerning the mechanism of the decarburization reaction of molten Fe-C alloys. The author's results being compared with the rate of the carbon removal on the practical operation, the fundamental conditions necessary to the operation of oxygen blowing was considered.
The results obtained were as follows:
(1) As the reaction was shown to take place on the interface between gaseous and liquid phases, the rate of the carbon removal depended upon the weight of iron, the area of interface and the oxygen pressure at a given carbon content. When the area of interface was maintained to be.constant, the rate depended only on the partial pressure of oxygen and in case of lower carbon contents up to 1%, the rate became constant at higher oxygen pressures above 2/5 atm.
(2) However in the practical operations the area of interface varied with the amounts of the bubbles produced by oxygen blowing, and the oxygen pressura in the phase of bubbles was approximately 1 atm.
Consequently the reaction rate depended upon the area of interface and the amounts. of oxygen introduced.
As the differences of the rate was due to those reasons, it was necessary to flow the suitable oxygen gas to the furnace in such a way that enlarged this area as possible.
(3) In order to promote the reaction taking place on the interface, it desirable to accele. rate the diffusion of carbon, the coefficient of which was slow in molten iron;by the method of the physical turbulence.
(4) As the activity coefficients of the reactants increased with the diminution of the carbon content, the beginning of oxygen blowing was more effective at the lower carbon concentrations.
