Decarburization of steel under inert condition

A horizontal tube furnace was used to study a decarburization of steel (i.e. carbonyl iron) containing 99.8 wt. % iron (Fe) and 0.007 wt. % carbon (C) at 1600 °C and under argon (Ar) atmosphere. The inert condition was applied throughout the experiment is to control reactions of the melt and avoid any contamination. Off-gases (i.e. carbon monoxide (CO) and carbon dioxide (CO2) ) was analysed on-line by using an infrared (IR) gas analyser, while LECO® analysed initial and final C content in metal. The literature and this work results showed that CO2 generation is very low compared to CO one. Therefore, CO generation has been considered for representing the removal of carbon. The proposed mechanism for decarburizing steel under inert condition was worked and low levels of carbon have been achieved successfully (i.e. 58ppm)