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Importance of water use in the steel industry
Water’s ever-growing importance in the industrial manufacturing arena has been demonstrated by an increasing concern regarding the sufficiency of both its quantity and quality for use in industrial applications.
In general, water is used in steelmaking as a: coolant for equipment, furnaces, and intermediate steel shapes; cleansing agent to remove scale from steel products; source of steam; medium for lubricating oils and cleaning solutions; and wet scrubber fluid for air pollution control. The type of steel being manufactured, its shape, and the efficiency of the equipment used to produce it all factor into steelmaking water requirements. Depending on the above variables, steelmaking water demands may vary by several thousand gallons per ton.
Water requirements. Currently, an approximate 75,000 gallons of water are required to produce 1 ton of steel . However, this figure includes recycled and reused process and cooling water Water use in the iron and steel industry varied widely and depended on the availability of water, age and condition of plants and equipment, kinds of processes, and plant operating procedures. Gross water use in integrated steel plants ranged from 11,200 to 110,000 gallons per ton of steel ingots, and in steel processing plants it ranged from 4,180 to 26,700 gallons per ton. Water reuse also varied widely from 0 to 18 times in integrated steel plants and from 0 to 44 times in steel processing plants. Availability of water seemed to be the prinicpal factor in determining the rate of reuse. Of the units within steel plants, a typical (median) blast furnace required 20,500 gallons of water per ton of pig iron. At the 1956-60 average rate of pig iron consumption, this amounts to about 13,000 gallons per ton of steel ingots or about 40 percent of that required by a typical integrated steel plant 33,200 gallons per ton. Different processes of iron ore concentration are devised
Water’s ever-growing importance in the industrial manufacturing arena has been demonstrated by an increasing concern regarding the sufficiency of both its quantity and quality for use in industrial applications.
In general, water is used in steelmaking as a: coolant for equipment, furnaces, and intermediate steel shapes; cleansing agent to remove scale from steel products; source of steam; medium for lubricating oils and cleaning solutions; and wet scrubber fluid for air pollution control. The type of steel being manufactured, its shape, and the efficiency of the equipment used to produce it all factor into steelmaking water requirements. Depending on the above variables, steelmaking water demands may vary by several thousand gallons per ton.
Water requirements. Currently, an approximate 75,000 gallons of water are required to produce 1 ton of steel . However, this figure includes recycled and reused process and cooling water Water use in the iron and steel industry varied widely and depended on the availability of water, age and condition of plants and equipment, kinds of processes, and plant operating procedures. Gross water use in integrated steel plants ranged from 11,200 to 110,000 gallons per ton of steel ingots, and in steel processing plants it ranged from 4,180 to 26,700 gallons per ton. Water reuse also varied widely from 0 to 18 times in integrated steel plants and from 0 to 44 times in steel processing plants. Availability of water seemed to be the prinicpal factor in determining the rate of reuse. Of the units within steel plants, a typical (median) blast furnace required 20,500 gallons of water per ton of pig iron. At the 1956-60 average rate of pig iron consumption, this amounts to about 13,000 gallons per ton of steel ingots or about 40 percent of that required by a typical integrated steel plant 33,200 gallons per ton. Different processes of iron ore concentration are devised