Professional Documents
Culture Documents
ASSESSMENT OF REDUCTION
BEHAVIOR OF HEMATITE IRON
ORE PELLETS IN COAL FINES
FOR APPLICATION IN SPONGE
IRONMAKING
a a
M. Kumar & S. K. Patel
a
Department of Metallurgical and Materials
Engineering , National Institute of Technology ,
Rourkela, Orissa, India
Published online: 18 May 2009.
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the
information (the Content) contained in the publications on our platform.
However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no
representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,
or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views
expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and
are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the
Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with
primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any
losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,
and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or
indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the
Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.
Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,
sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is
expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
Downloaded by [Dicle University] at 15:12 16 November 2014
Mineral Processing & Extractive Metall. Rev., 30: 240259, 2009
Copyright Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0882-7508 print/1547-7401 online
DOI: 10.1080/08827500802498215
1. INTRODUCTION
Many attractive features of direct reduced iron (DRI) have led to an
increase in its production worldwide over the past century, and direct
reduction processes are presently considered to be the most developed
alternative ironmaking route. The basic properties and features of
DRI, produced from different direct reduction processes, have been
well summarized in the literature by Anameric and Kawatra (2007a,b).
Besides emerging as the fifth largest crude steel-producing country
in the world, India has achieved the number one position in DRI
Downloaded by [Dicle University] at 15:12 16 November 2014
Table 1. State-wise recoverable reserves of hematite and magnetite iron ores in India (million tons, MT)
Hematite
Zone A
Jharkhand 2400 159400 84400 14400 5100 517 26622
Orissa 28000 191600 73700 35000 1100 32940
Zone B
Madhya Pradesh 59690 48070 51700 41150 1890 19980
Maharashtra 730 12870 4680 4420 020 2272
242
Zone C
Karnataka 29990 60080 7310 9770 050 278390 38559
Zone D
Goa 270 21950 46920 4220 1140 16320 4082
Zone E
Andhra Pradesh 1430 190 3170 310 41790 4689
Rajasthan 028 768 104 030 93
Kerala +
Tamilnadu 3710
Grand total 119810 494188 272648 109374 9280 340777 134608
REDUCTION BEHAVIOR OF HEMATITE IRON ORE PELLETS 243
hematite iron ore pellets by F grade noncoking coal fines in the temper-
ature range of 8501000 C. The gradation of Indian noncoking coals
has been outlined in our previous article (Kumar and Patel 2008). This
Downloaded by [Dicle University] at 15:12 16 November 2014
study has been undertaken from the viewpoint of utilization of iron ore
and coal fines generated during mining and handling operations, and
may help in designing a rotary kiln and process parameters. The data
were subsequently used to determine the values of activation energy for
the reduction.
Table 3. Production, consumption, export and surplus availability of iron ore in India
(million tons)
Production Export
Domestic Surplus
Year Lumps Fines Total consumption Lumps Fines Total (Fines)
iv) DRI blocks, rods, granules, and cakes could be manufactured from
iron ore and coal/char fines packed in alternate layers in ceramic
saggers.
v) Coal and char fines could be utilized in captive power generation
through fluidized bed combustion boiler. A sponge iron plant with a
capacity of 300 tons/day can produce around 7 MW of electricity.
vi) Coal and char fines could be used in heat hardening of iron ore pellets.
Recycling of iron ore and coal fines in the form of agglomerates in the
Downloaded by [Dicle University] at 15:12 16 November 2014
3. EXPERIMENTAL
3.1. Materials Selection
In the present study, hematite iron ore samples were collected from
four different mines (D. R. Pattnaik, M. G. Mohanty, Sakaruddin, and
G. M. OMC Ltd.) of Orissa, India. Their chemical compositions have
been outlined in Table 4 (Kumar et al. 2008). Low-grade (F) noncoking
coal, used in the reduction studies, was procured from Brajrajnagar mine
of Orissa and examined for its chemical composition (Indian Standard
IS: 1350 1969), reactivity towards CO2 gas (Indian Standard IS: 12381
1994), caking index (Indian Standard IS: 1353 1993) and ash fusion
temperatures (DIN: 51730 1984). A brief description of the procedures
adopted has been outlined in our previous article (Kumar and Patel
2008), and the results obtained have been listed in Table 5.
Table 4. Chemical compositions of selected hematite iron ores (wt%, air-dried basis)
Loss on
Iron ore mine Fe (total) Fe2 O3 Al2 O3 SiO2 TiO2 MnO ignition
Table 5. Chemical composition, reactivity, caking index, and ash fusion temperatures of
studied Brajrajnagar non-coking coal
39.25 40.25 20.50 0.55 5.17 Nil 1138 1421 1585 1638
Table 6A. Specifications of iron ores for different direct reduction processes
Physical
248
Process (total) SiO2 S P Alkali (mm) +63 mm) 05 mm) +10 mm)
Midrex 67.0 3.2 0.016 0.015 0.15 635 90.0 7.0 95.0
(min) (max) (max) (max) (max) (min) (max) (min)
HyL 65.5 2.2 0.020 0.10 625 85.0 10.0 90.0
(min) (max) (max) (max) (min) (max) (min)
Rotary 64.0 4.0 0.010 0.040 518 90.0 7.0 95.0
kiln (min) (max) (max) (max) (min) (max) (min)
REDUCTION BEHAVIOR OF HEMATITE IRON ORE PELLETS 249
Ash
Volatile Fixed Reactivity softening Bulk
matter Ash carbon Sulphur (cc of CO/g temperature Caking Swelling density
(wt%) (wt%) (wt%) (wt%) of C per sec) ( C) index index (kg/m3 )
hematite iron ore pellets studied. With increase in heating time, the
degree of reduction increased at all the studied temperatures, with
the rate being faster up to about 5060% reduction, followed by a
decrease thereafter. The higher reduction rate in the first 30 minutes
Table 7. Kinetic model equations usually used in reduction of iron oxide with carbon
Abraham and Ghosh (1979, 230305 kJ mol1 ), and Wright et al. (1981,
Downloaded by [Dicle University] at 15:12 16 November 2014
290335 kJ mol1 ). This suggests that the kinetics of iron ore reduction
is highly sensitive to the characteristics of carbon used, and the relatively
lower activation energies obtained in the present study with coal may
be attributed to its higher reactivity. Despite somewhat different experi-
mental conditions in the present study, the apparent activation energies
obtained for the reduction of D. R. Pattnaik and M. G. Mohanty
hematite iron ore pellets are fairly comparable to the values reported
for iron ore-coal/char systems by Seaton et al. (1983, 125 kJ mol1 ),
Ray et al. (1991, 186 kJ mol1 ), Haque et al. (1993, 153160 kJ mol1 ),
and Nasr et al. (1994, 121230 kJ mol1 ). An important feature to be
noted is that these values of activation energy for D. R. Pattnaik and
M. G. Mohanty iron ore pellets are very close to that of C + CO2 =
2CO reaction (176218 kJ mol1 ) (Filippov 1975), indicating that the
reductions of these iron ore pellets are most probably controlled by
gasification of carbon. Another interesting finding is that the reduc-
tions of G. M. OMC Ltd. and Sakaruddin iron ore pellets were accom-
panied by lower apparent activation energies (83 and 84 kJ mol1 ) than
D. R. Pattnaik and M. G. Mohanty iron ore pellets, and these results
are in good agreement with the values reported by Ghosh and Tiwari
(1970, 78 kJ mol1 ), Chakravorty et al. (1991, 4270 kJ mol1 ), Dey et al.
(1993, 3544 kJ mol1 ), and Wang et al. (1998, 6983 kJ mol1 ). As
suggested by Otsuka and Kunii (1969), the catalytic enhancement of
carbon gasification reaction by metallic iron could be assumed to be
responsible for lower activation energies in this case and these values
(8384 kJ mol1 ) are comparable to the data for indirect reduction
reactions (6380 kJ mol1 ) (Filippov 1975), indicating reduction of iron
oxide by CO gas to be the rate-controlling step.
Table 9. Activation energies (E) for reduction of iron ores/oxides by solid carbons, as found in the literature
Temperature E
Investigators Charge materials range ( C) (kJ/mol1 )
255
Seaton et al. (1983) Hematite iron ore + coal char 8001200 125238
Magnetite iron ore + coal char 8001200 158
Ray et al. (1991) Hematite iron ore + coal char 9001000 186
Chakravorty et al. (1991) Hematite iron ore + coals 9001100 4270
Haque et al. (1993) Hematite iron ore + coals 9001050 153160
Dey et al. (1993) Chemical grade hematite + coal 9001050 3544
Nasr et al. (1994) Hematite iron ores + petroleum coke 9501100 121230
Wang et al. (1998) Iron ore + coal 10501300 6983
Santos and Mourao (2004) Iron oxides + graphite, 12001350 46120
coke fines and charcoal
Shalini et al. (2005) Hematite iron ore + coal 9001050 59
256 M. KUMAR AND S. K. PATEL
5. CONCLUSIONS
Based on the findings of the present investigation, the following conclu-
sions may be drawn:
REFERENCES
Abraham, M. C. and Ghosh, A., 1979, Kinetics of reduction of iron oxide by
carbon. Ironmaking and Steelmaking, 1, pp. 1422.
Anameric, B. and Kawatra, S. K., 2007a, Properties and features of direct
reduced iron. Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy Review, 28,
pp. 158.
Anameric, B. and Kawatra, S. K., 2007b, Conditions for making direct
reduced iron, transition direct reduced iron and pig iron nuggets in
a laboratory furnace: Temperature-time transformations. Minerals and
Metallurgical Processing, 24, pp. 4150.
Bodsworth, C. and Taheri, S. K., 1987, Progressive changes in iron ore and
coal char during direct reduction with coal gasification. Ironmaking and
Steelmaking, 14, pp. 278290.
Chakravorty, S., Reddy, G. V., and Sharma, T., 1991, Direct reduction of
iron ore by noncoking coals of different compositions. Transactions of the
Indian Institute of Metals, 44, pp. 17.
Chakravorty, S., 2005, Effect of iron ore granulemetry on the preparation
of metallic iron cake using waste fines without agglomeration. M. Tech.
Thesis, BHU, Varanasi, India.
Dey, S. K., Jena, B., and Basumallick, A., 1993, Kinetics and reduction
characteristics of hematite: Noncoking coal mixed pellets under nitrogen
gas atmosphere. ISIJ International, 33, pp. 735739.
258 M. KUMAR AND S. K. PATEL
Nasr, M. I., Omar, A. A., Khadr, M. H., and El-Geassy, A. A., 1994,
Analysis of solid-state reduction of iron ore from a couple of experimental
measurements. Scandinavian Journal of Metallurgy, 23, pp. 119125.
Otsuka, K. and Kunii, D., 1969, Reduction mechanism of molten iron oxide
by solid carbon. Journal of Chemical Engineering of Japan, 2, pp. 4650.
Pani, P. K., Chattopadhyay, S., and Acharya, D., 2007, Waste to wealth:
A positive approach for sponge iron industries. National Workshop on
Utilization of Waste from Sponge Iron, Power Plant and Mineral Based Indus-
tries, Rourkela, DISIR, pp. 118125.
Rao, Y. K., 1971, Kinetics of reduction of hematite by carbon. Metallurgical
and Materials Transactions, 55, pp. 14391447.
Downloaded by [Dicle University] at 15:12 16 November 2014
Ray, A. K., Prasad, K. K., and Sen, P. K., 1991, Kinetics of reduction of
iron ore with coal char. Transactions of the Indian Institute of Metals, 44,
pp. 171174.
Santos, D. M. dos and Mourao, M. B., 2004, High temperature reduction
of iron oxides by solid carbon or carbon dissolved in liquid iron-carbon
alloy. Scandinavian Journal of Metallurgy, 33, pp. 229235.
Seaton, C. E., Foster, J. S., and Velasco, J., 1983, Reduction kinetics of
hematite and magnetite pellets containing coal char. ISIJ International,
23, pp. 490496.
Sengupta, S., 2006, Indian iron ore industry in global perspective,
Steel World, October, pp. 16, (Available at: http://www.steelworld.com/
focus1006.pdf)
Shalini, Sharma, T., Saxena, V. K., and Upadhyaya, L. N., 2005, Reduction
of iron ore pellets with non-coking coal. Institution of Engineers (India)
JournalMM, 86, pp. 3436.
Srinivasan, N. S. and Lahiri, A. K., 1977, Studies on the reduction of hematite
by carbon. Metallurgical and Materials Transactions, 8B, pp. 175178.
Tripathy, A. K., 2007, Utilization of iron bearing and carbonaceous waste
materials for reuse in metallurgical furnaces. National Workshop on
Utilization of Waste from Sponge Iron, Power Plant and Mineral Based Indus-
tries, Rourkela, DISIR, pp. 1237.
Wang, Q., Yang, Z., Tian, J., Li, W., and Sun, J., 1998, Reduction kinetics of
iron ore-coal pellet during fast heating. Ironmaking and Steelmaking, 25,
p. 443.
Wright, J. K., Bowling, K. M., and Morrison, A. L., 1981, Reduction of
hematite pellets with carbonized coal in a static bed. ISIJ International,
21, pp. 149155.