Status and Characteristics of Ferrosilicon Industry in China

Abstract

Currently, Chinese ferrosilicon industry shows characteristics including highly concentrated industrial regions, graded utilization of raw materials, large-scale submerged arc furnace, and application of automation equipment. Chinese ferrosilicon industry is highly concentrated in five major regions, where mineral and electric power resources are fully exploited to develop the "coal-electricity-metallurgy" and "coal-coke-gas-electricity--metallurgy-magnesium" industrial chains. Production relies on both the silica resources of Helan mountain and Qilian Mountain, and the unique semi coke with particle size of 5-18mm produced from Jurassic sticky coal in Shenfu region. A series of different characterization methods are used to achieve the graded utilization of raw materials, and the smelting power consumption could be optimized to 7200-7300kWh per ton of FeSi75. China encourages and support large-scale ferrosilicon furnaces, the load of new-built submerged arc furnace in the country are around 33-40MW, and the largest furnace reaches 63MW. Erdos as the biggest ferrosilicon producer in the world, has a capacity of more than 1 million tons per year. The load of its largest furnace is 50MW. Erdos is committed to the development of full-process automation for ferrosilicon production, which covers "raw material storage and transportation, batching, distribution, electrode operation, charge-mix surface treatment, furnace discharge, casting and product crushing". For instance, the use of a self-developed automatic rotary feeder reduced the smelting energy consumption by optimizing the structure of charge-mix layer. The application of the automatic tapping machine allows robots to replace manpower in key and hazardous positions. This paper deeply analyzes the ferrosilicon industry characteristics in China and provides reference for the development of the ferrosilicon industry