Overview Of The VILD-project, Vanadium Recovery From LD-Slag, A Long Term Slag Project For The Swedish Steel Industry

Abstract:

The Swedish iron ore contains about 0.1%V. In a blast furnace the vanadium is reduced to the hot metal which has a V-content of about 0.3%. During the LD-process, the vanadium is oxidised and ends up in the LD-slag. The high V-content, 2-3%V in the slag leads to a very limited external application of the slag in Sweden. At the same time it is a huge loss of an important resource. Since 2004, MISTRA - the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research has together with the steel and mining industry in Sweden and Finland initiated and supported a long term project, called VILD (Vanadium In LD-slag), aiming at efficient recovery of vanadium in the slag and at the same time a useful slag product with low V-content. The aimed concept consists of a reduction step and a phosphorus removal step. This paper will highlight some of the results obtained so far with focus on the various metallurgical reactors used for the slag reduction. The available amount of vanadium in the unused Swedish LD-slag is about 5000 tons corresponding to a value of about US$ 150 millions every year based on the current vanadium price. The environmental potentials of the project include annual savings of more than 1 million tons CO2 and 2 TWh of energy according to the preliminary LCA assessment.For the reduction trials, both pilot and industrial trials have been performed and it has shown that it is possible to reduce the vanadium to below 0.1% in the slag. This will open a wider market for the reduced slag products. The property of the slag product will also be discussed.

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