Abstract
The world is facing the challenges of high energy consumption and low energy efficiency.
In order to address these challenges, researchers have been engrossed on one of the most
energy demanding sector worldwide that employs electric furnaces, such as foundry
industry. The purpose of this paper is to show the importance and impact of oxygen gas
injection in the creation of a foaming slag during the metal melting process in induction
furnace (IF). Results have shown when an optimum of oxygen gas injection 100ml/sec is
used, the melting time can be reduced by about 12 min with an average melting time of 42
to 50 min, which results in a gain of almost 12 min in melting time and the electrical energy
consumption is reduced by 24.33% from 18.41kWh to 13.93kWh. When the thickness of
slag foam increases from 0.2 - 0.9cm during the experimental process, the temperature on
the surface of the foaming slag can decrease from 912°C to 878°C.