The iron in ferrosilicon comes from steel chips in the furnace charge. According to the quality requirements of ferrosilicon, only ordinary carbon steel chips are allowed to be used during smelting, and alloy steel chips, such as stainless steel, high chromium steel, high manganese steel, etc., are not allowed. So smelting ferrosilicon with alloy steel scraps will result in waste products. It is also not allowed to use scrap iron as it has a high phosphorus content. Non ferrous metal chips such as copper and aluminum cannot be used for smelting ferrosilicon. Therefore, for the sake of the quality of ferrosilicon, only steel chips from ordinary carbon steel are allowed to be used during smelting.
Steel chips with a lot of rust cannot be used because they have a lot of impurities, making it difficult to control the iron content during smelting. At the same time, steel chips with a lot of rust have poor strength and a lot of powder, which affect the air permeability of the material surface when added to the furnace. Therefore, it is stipulated that the iron content of the steel chips used should be greater than 95%, the surface should be clean, and there should be no many impurities.
The length of steel chips should not be too long to prevent uneven mixing and blockage of the feeding pipe. Long steel chips can also cause uneven charging of the furnace material, affecting the three-phase load imbalance. Therefore, it is advisable to specify that the length of steel chips should not exceed 100 millimeters.
