
ASANUMA Minoru KAJIOKA Masahiko KUWABARA Minoru FUKUMOTO Yasuhiro TERADA Kaneo
The establishment of technology for recycling waste plastics is a highly important issue for global environmental conservation and the society. JFE Steel has pursued the effective use of waste plastics as a reducing agent for injection into blast furnaces, and conducted hot model experiments to study the combustion and gasification behaviour of waste plastics. On the basis of this basic investigation, advanced technologies that can further improve the combustion and gasification efficiency of waste plastics even with low strength has been developed; i.e. in order to improve combustibility of fine waste plastics, technology for simultaneous injection of such plastics with pulverized coal and/or natural gas has been developed. For improved the strength of plastics, technology for combined agglomeration of waste plastics with CaCO3 has been developed. In addition, technology for fine crushing of waste plastics has been studied on the basis of new ideas, and this technology has been applied in actual plant operation. These technologies have been successfully applied in actual blast furnaces, contributing to lowering the reducing agent rate.