What is Pulverized Coal Injection (PCI)?

About Pulverized Coal Injection (PCI):

• PCI is a process which involves injecting large volumes of fine coal particles into the raceway of the blast furnace (BF). 
• It is an essential instrument for modern blast furnace ironmaking.
• PCI provides auxiliary fuel for partial coke replacement and has proven both economically and environmentally favourable.
• It can result in substantial improvement in the BF efficiency and thus contribute to the reduction of energy consumption and environmental emissions.
• The composition and properties of the coal used for injection can influence the operation, stability and productivity of the BF and the composition of the BF gas.
• The PCI process system constitutes six numbers of sub-systems, namely,
  • storage and discharge of the raw coal;
  • pulverizing and drying of the raw coal;
  • transportation, storage and supply of the pulverized coal to the injection system;
  • uniform distribution of pulverized coal to each tuyere;
  • combustion of pulverized coal;
  • explosion prevention facilities;

What is a tuyere?

• A tuyere or tuyère is a tube, nozzle or pipe through which air is blown into a furnace.
• Air or oxygen is injected into a furnace under pressure from a device such as bellows or a blowing engine.
• This causes the fire to be hotter in front of the blast than it would otherwise have been, enabling metals to be smelted or made hot enough to be worked in a forge.