Patent ID: 8333819

Claim:
A process for melting metal in an electric arc furnace having an apparatus operably connected to the electric arc furnace, the apparatus comprising: a burner for burning fuel and an oxidant, said burner having a burner axis and a burner outlet opening, and a lance having a lance axis and a lance outlet opening, the lance being equipped with a convergent-divergent nozzle comprising a sonic throat having a diameter d, wherein the lance outlet opening and the burner outlet opening are not concentric and are located at a distance D from one another, D 20×d, and the lance axis forms an angle α with the burner axis in the range from 10° to 40°, the process comprising the steps of: during a metal melting step, operating the burner of the apparatus to combust fuel and oxidant to produce a flame within the electric arc furnace, and deviating the flame by injecting a jet of an actuating gas from the lance of the burner of the apparatus into the electric arc furnace; and during a step of refining the metal, switching the lance to supersonic mode so as to inject a supersonic jet of oxygen into the electric arc furnace.