Nickel ore---Dehydration, sintering, agglomeration---- mix with coke, flux----blast furnace smelting----crude ferronickel reduce Si, C, P ,S by refinery----Ferronickel
The blast furnace is applicable for low nickel, high ferro smelting, this technology make use of thermal energy from coke burning, FeO can be fully reduced by C in coke, so the content of Ni basically is limited to the ratio of Ni/Fe of charged nickel ore.
The main application of nickel is to produce stainless steel, high nickel alloy steel and structural alloy steel, which are widely applied in plane, radar, naval vessels, etc. In civil industry, nickel is made into structural steel, acid resisting steel, heat resisting steel, etc.
The application of blast furnace nickel iron
The main application of nickel iron is as substitutes of nickel for stainless steel furnace burden, 200 series stainless steel production can directly use low grade nickel iron,(blast furnace nickel iron), 300 series use nickel iron with more than 8% of nickel content, which usually produced by submerged arc furnace( electric furnace).