On the Rate of Carbon Oxidation in Liquid Iron by Oxygen Blowing

Kinetic studies on the steelmaking reaction-II

Abstract

The rate of carbon oxidation is measured by blowing the oxygen gas into liquid iron. The reaction can be written such as
C+1/2O₂(g)→CO(g).
The observed rate against the flow rate of the oxygen gas shows that the oxygen gas supplied is completely consumed in the case of all flow rates. Therefore it may be emphasized that the rate of chemical reaction which may occur on the interface between liquid iron and gas phase is sufficiently rapid to be settled by a supply of reacting species. Furthermore, the constant rate of carbon oxidation observed at high oxygen pressures may be due to the fact that the rate-determining factor exists in the transfer of reactants (carbon) towards the surface where a chemical equilibrium occurs.
These experimentsl results may be explained by theoretical considerations carried out on the basis of the diffusion film theory.
The total amount of carbon taken away from liquid iron at high oxygen pressures is calculated by
_??_
where ρ is the density of liquid iron, D_c, the diffusion constant of carbon in liquid iron, Δl the thickness of diffusion film, and n, the number of bubbles.[C] _li, and [C] _ni are the respectiveinitial weight% of carbon in the first and n-th bubbles.[C] _Ω is the surface% of carbon. Calculated results are qualitatively in agreement with the observed data.