5. Pre-treatment of cast iron

The article Pretreatment of liquid cast iron of this treatise distinguishes three stages in the pre-treatment of liquid cast iron between blast furnace and conversion steelworks:

• desiliconization;

• desulfurization ;

• dephosphorization is accompanied by some removal of chromium, niobium and vanadium.

At present, only a few Japanese plants systematically carry out all three stages. In Europe and the United States, only desulphurization is used, with three main operating variants:

• desulphurization with sodium carbonate ;

• desulphurization with magnesium-based products;

• calcium desulfurization using products based...