Glossary
Steel and refining
Sinter plant
Also known as sintering plant, iron-ore sintering, sinter strand.
A sinter plant agglomerates iron-ore fines, coke breeze and flux on a moving sinter strand into porous sinter cake that can be charged to the blast furnace. Sinter is the primary iron-bearing feed at most integrated steelworks. The off-gas system carries dust loaded with iron oxides, alkali salts and unburned carbon, and is cleaned by ESP followed by baghouse on modern plants.
Cleaning challenges
- Sinter strand ESP — heavy iron-oxide dust load, with episodic alkali-rich spikes
- Main exhaust filter — fine iron-oxide dust accumulates in hoppers
- Cooler waste-heat boiler — fouls when present, see waste-heat boiler
- Coke-side dust collection — coke breeze and fines
Sonic-horn fit
Sonic horns on sinter-plant ESP hoppers and baghouse compartments are routine specifications, particularly on European and East Asian steelworks where particulate-emission limits are tight.
Related terms
Related terms
- Electrostatic precipitatorAn ESP removes particulate from flue gas by charging dust and collecting it on plate electrodes. Sonic horns are widely used to dislodge ash from plates and to keep hoppers from bridging.
- 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.