Steel and refining
Electric arc furnace
Also known as EAF, arc furnace, DC arc furnace.
An electric arc furnace (EAF) melts steel scrap and direct reduced iron (DRI) in a refractory-lined vessel using a high-current electric arc between graphite electrodes and the metal bath. EAF steelmaking is the dominant route in scrap-rich economies (US, Italy, Türkiye, parts of South-East Asia) and is the primary growth path for low-carbon steel via "mini-mill" production.
Fume capture and cleaning
EAF off-gas leaves the furnace through a fourth-hole evacuation duct, is combined with secondary canopy hood emissions, and is collected at a large baghouse — typical capacity 1,000–3,000 m³/s. The baghouse compartments handle fine ferrous and non-ferrous oxide dust at temperatures of 80–150 °C.
Sonic-horn duty
Sonic horns on EAF baghouse compartment roofs and hoppers prevent fine-dust bridging. The hopper duty is particularly demanding because EAF dust contains zinc oxide (from galvanised scrap), which is hygroscopic and sticky.
Related terms
Related terms
- Basic oxygen furnaceA BOF blows pure oxygen onto molten pig iron to refine it into steel. Off-gas dust collection is high-temperature, intermittent and demanding.
- Direct reduced ironDRI reduces iron-ore pellets to metallic iron in solid state using gas or coal. Hopper bridging in DRI dust handling is a recurring operational issue.
- BaghouseA baghouse is the structural enclosure that holds the bags, cages, tubesheet, cleaning system and hoppers of a fabric-filter dust collector. Sized in compartments for online isolation.
- Sonic hornA sonic horn is a pneumatically-driven low-frequency sound emitter (typically 60–400 Hz at 140–180 dB SPL) used to dislodge particulate fouling from boilers, ESPs, baghouses and process vessels.