In June 2023, PKU Pioneer successfully reached a cooperation agreement with Benxi Shentie Iron (Group) Co., Ltd (hereinafter referred to as Shentie Group) on the consecutive two-phase construction of a 4000Nm3/h VPSA oxygen plant project.

Although PKU Pioneer has built a number of oxygen systems for foundry blast furnace oxygen enrichment, it is the first case in the casting industry in Northeast China, which further promotes the wide application of VPSA oxygen generation technology in China's foundry blast furnace industry.

The foundry blast furnace volume of most foundry pig iron manufacturing enterprises that meet China's standard conditions is 179m³-450m³ with the laggards having been gradually sifted out.

Shentie Group has been increasing investment in innovation and development in recent years to promote the upgrading and transformation of its traditional equipment. The foundry blast furnace in the factory originally used air-assisted combustion. And as the application of oxygen enrichment technology in blast furnaces becomes more and more common, its advantage of energy saving and consumption reduction emerges since it can significantly increase the molten iron output and at the same time reduce the coke ratio and fuel consumption.

In order to promote the upgrading of technical equipment and boost the short-process casting production, Shentie Group quickly set up a group of experts to comprehensively seek oxygen supply technological solutions. After many technical discussions with PKU Pioneer, the group decided to adopt the economical, stable and reliable VPSA oxygen production process to improve the oxygen enrichment rate to realize the technological transformation of the foundry blast furnace and enhance the efficiency of the group.

Shentie Group is located in Benxi, Liaoning Province, which is the production base of "ginseng iron" in China.

This kind of pig iron manufactured in Changbai Mountain Range is of excellent quality with low phosphorus, sulfur and impurities content. As precious as ginseng, it's unparalleled among the competing products in China, therefore, it's famously known as "ginseng iron”.

The iron plays an important role in metallurgy and machinery manufacturing. By precision casting, high-quality "ginseng iron" from Shentie Group will be processed into automobile engine crankshafts and shells, brake discs, as well as precision castings for mining engineering machinery and offshore oil extraction equipment, etc., serving both social and living areas.

At present, the two partners are speeding up the technological transformation, striving to put the project into production on schedule.

Once the project was launched, PKU Pioneer immediately set up a special working group and started the implementation to create a benchmarking quality project, endeavoring to complete the engineering and construction tasks early before the Northeast enters the permafrost period in winter, so that the foundry can utilize low-cost oxygen earlier.

PKU Pioneer has accumulated rich experience in foundry blast furnace project implementation. A number of VPSA oxygen generator projects have been put into production in Linfen, Jincheng of Shanxi Province and other regions where foundry enterprises are centered, of which the earliest can be traced back to 2013. It's been maintaining continuous and stable operation for 10 years and has created considerable economic benefits for the user.

In addition, the 22500/80 VPSA oxygen unit built by PKU Pioneer for Rizhao Zhufu Industry Co., Ltd. was successfully put into production. As the largest VPSA-O2 unit equipped for foundry blast furnaces in China up to now, the oxygen plant has been providing qualified, stable and cost-effective oxygen for multiple foundry blast furnaces since the it was put into operation.

PKU Pioneer's VPSA oxygen plants span a wide range of specifications for foundry blast furnaces and long-process blast furnaces, covering oxygen production volumes from thousands to tens of thousands of Nm3/h.

We've served over 60 leading iron and steel enterprises both at home and abroad and have been providing professional and efficient oxygen supply solutions for the global iron and steel industry to create significant economic and social benefits.