Processing of iron nuggets from low grade iron ore

Abstract

Nowadays, the sources of high grade materials are rare and limited. A new technology which can produce iron nuggets from low grade materials is known as “Iron making Technology Mark Three” (ITmk3). Our objective is to study the ITmk3 process to produce iron nuggets and the parameters that control the quality of the iron nuggets, such as the weight ratios of feeds, the reduction time, and the reduction temperature. The ultimate goal of this work is to determine the suitable conditions to produce iron nuggets from low grade iron ore which has 40-60% iron content and a low grade coal as the raw materials. The suitable conditions for making Iron nugget (over 94 %Fe and % yield more than 94 %), from a pellet which has a diameter of 2.5 cm and 4 cm high, are by using the mol ratios of the mixture as C/Fe = 1.53, Limestone/Al203+SiO2 = 0.75, and Bentonite/Fe = 0.02/1 with the reduction temperature of 1425℃ and at the reduction time of 20 min.