ALTERNATIVE BINDERS TO BENTONITE FOR IRON ORE PELLETIZING: PART I: EFFECTS ON PHYSICAL AND MECHANICAL PROPERTIES

Abstract

The use of conventional bentonite binder is favorable in terms of mechanical and metallurgical pellet properties, however, because of its acid constituents bentonite is considered as impurity especially for iron ores with high acidic content. Therefore, alternative binders to bentonite have been tested. Organic binders are the most studied binders and they yield pellets with good wet strength; they fail in terms of preheated and fired pellet strengths. This study was conducted to investigate how insufficient pellet strengths can be improved when organic binders are used as binder. The addition of a low-melting temperature and slag bonding/strength increasing constituent (free in acidic contents) into pellet feed was proposed. Addition of boron compounds such as colemanite, tincal, borax pentahydrate, boric acid together with organic binders such as CMC, starch, dextrin and some organic based binders, into iron oxide pellet was tested. Wet and thermally treated pellet physical-mechanical qualities (balling - moisture content - size - shape - drop number - compressive strengths - porosity - dustiness) were determined. The results showed that good quality wet, dry, preheated and fired pellets can be produced with combined binders (an organic binder plus a boron compound) when compared with bentonite-bonded pellets. While organic binders provided sufficient wet and dry pellet strengths, the boron compounds provided the required preheated and fired pellet strengths at even lower firing temperature. Especially, the contribution of boron compound addition is most pronounced for hematite pellets which do not have strengthening mechanism through oxidation like magnetite pellets during firing. Therefore, addition of boron compound is beneficial to recover the low physical-mechanical qualities of pellets produced with organic binders through slag bonding mechanism. Furthermore, lowering the firing temperature thanks to low-melting boron compounds will be cost-effective for firing part of the pelletizing plants.