With the effective control of the COVID-19 epidemic in China, the total market demand has gradually picked up. As of April 21, 178 of the 191 (nearly 93.2%) enterprises monitored by the China Iron & Steel Association were back in production. The release of iron and steel capacity has been accelerated with a significant increase in the production. As a result, the demand for the proposed project that was suspended earlier has been gradually released in the second quarter. Currently, PKU Pioneer and Nanyang Hanye Special Steel Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Hanye Special Steel) signed an agreement on the supply of VPSA oxygen plant for the phase Ⅲ blast furnace ironmaking project, with a view to speeding up the setting-up and achieving target production & efficiency of the special steel mill as soon as possible.

Hanye Special Steel is the largest domestic manufacturer of special, extra-thick and heavy steel plates, with long iron & steel production processes and an annual output of 4 million tons of medium and heavy steel plates. In order to further increase the output, Hanye Special Steel carried out reconstruction and expansion for the existing 3 blast furnaces. Increasing the steel capacity leads to higher oxygen demand, to ensure the smooth running of the ironmaking blast furnace, the company needs to purchase oxygen to fill the oxygen gap of approx. 20000Nm3/h. The cost is high based on the oxygen price of about $0.2-0.28/m3. However, by adopting VPSA oxygen plant, the investment can be reduced to about $0.03-0.035/m3. Taking into account equipment depreciation and other factors, a total operating cost of more than $140,773 will be saved annually.

After many investigations and demonstrations, Hanye Special Steel intends to erect the VPSA oxygen unit in three phases, each with the capacity of 7500Nm3/h and purity of 80% (equivalent to 6000Nm3/h for pure oxygen).

At the end of 2018, Hanye Special Steel and PKU Pioneer started the cooperation on the phase Ⅰ oxygen production project. After putting into operation, the oxygen system provided stable and reliable enriched oxygen for the blast furnace, and hence significantly improved the production efficiency. Due to the smooth progress of the phase Ⅰ project, Hanye Special Steel quickly started the second phase without any hesitation, and signed the agreement with PKU Pioneer in February 2020. At present, the phase Ⅱ oxygen unit has entered the pre-procurement stage, and delivery is expected to be completed in May.

PKU Pioneer Installing 7500/80 VPSA Oxygen Plant for Hanye Special Steel (Adsorption Vessel Hoisting)

PKU Pioneer Installing 7500/80 VPSA Oxygen Plant for Hanye Special Steel (Buffer Tank Hoisting)

As the two parties established a good foundation of cooperation and trust in the early stage, cooperation on the third phase of the oxygen generation project was reached in April. With urgent oxygen demand, and coinciding with insufficient productivity of both upstream and downstream suppliers during the coronavirus outbreak, operating costs of Hanye Special Steel have increased sharply, and more difficulties has emerged in the project implementation. Even with these objective disadvantages, PKU Pioneer still devoted ourselves to meeting the needs of customers, so that production and supply can keep up with the demand, and engineering services can remain at the best level.

Over the years, PKU Pioneer's PSA (Pressure Swing Adsorption) oxygen generation technology has achieved remarkable results in the smelting industry. As the data shows, more and more clients repeatedly resort to solutions offered by PKU Pioneer for various projects, and also, VPSA oxygen generating process shows unique advantages in its downstream application fields, especially in oxygen enrichment for BF iron manufacturing and short-process steel smelting. All its comprehensive indexes such as construction period, power consumption and cost recovery period show obvious economic advantages.