In general, the steelmaking process begins with ironmaking, which refers to the process of extracting iron from iron ore through a series of chemical and physical treatment processes. At present, the most common way to make iron is to produce iron in blast furnaces. Before entering the blast furnace, iron ore needs to undergo certain treatment, such as beneficiation, crushing, sintering, pelletizing and other processes, and iron ore can only be put into the blast furnace for smelting after meeting certain quality requirements.

Blast furnace is one of the most common equipments in ironmaking process. The main raw materials of iron making include: iron ore, coke, limestone, air. During blast furnace production, iron ore, coke and slag flux (limestone) are loaded from the top of the furnace, and preheated air is blown into the tuyere located in the lower part of the furnace along the furnace. Under high temperatures, the carbon in coke (some blast furnaces also blow auxiliary fuels such as pulverized coal, heavy oil, natural gas, etc.) and the carbon monoxide and hydrogen generated by oxygen combustion into the air are removed from the oxygen in the iron ore during the rising process in the furnace, thus obtaining the iron after reduction.

Blast furnace iron making equipment consists of: (1) blast furnace body; (2) feeding equipment; (3) air supply equipment; (4) injection equipment; (5) gas treatment equipment; (6) Slag iron treatment equipment.

According to previous project experience, the construction investment of the auxiliary system is 4 to 5 times that of the blast furnace body. In production, the various systems cooperate with each other and restrict each other to form a continuous, large-scale high-temperature production process. After the blast furnace is opened, the whole system must be continuously produced day and night, in addition to planned maintenance and special accidents, the furnace is generally stopped at the end of the life of the generation.