Abstract
How to utilize low grade complex iron resources is an issue that has attracted much attention due to the continuous and huge consumption of iron ores in China. High-aluminum iron ore is a refractory resource and is difficult to upgrade by separating iron and alumina. An innovative technology involving synergistic reducing and synergistic smelting a high-aluminum iron ore containing 41.92% Fetotal, 13.74% Al2O3, and 13.96% SiO2 with a high-manganese iron ore assaying 9.24% Mntotal is proposed. The synergistic reduction process is presented and its enhancing mechanism is discussed. The results show that the generation of hercynite (FeAl2O4) and fayalite (Fe2SiO4) leads to a low metallization degree of 66.49% of the high-aluminum iron ore. Over 90% of the metallization degree is obtained by synergistic reducing with 60% of the high-manganese iron ore. The mechanism of synergistic reduction can be described as follows: MnO from the high-manganese ore chemically combines with Fe2SiO4 and FeAl2O4 to generate Mn2SiO4, MnAl2O4 and FeO, resulting in higher activity of FeO, which can be reduced to Fe in a CO atmosphere. The main products of the synergistic reduction process consist of Fe, Mn2SiO4, and MnAl2O4.
Highlights
In 2017, 87.47% of 1229 million tons of iron ore consumed by the Chinese iron steel industry were imported [1]
The two iron ores are both low iron grade, and the high-aluminum iron ore (HA ore) contains high contents of alumina and silica, while high manganese content was observed in the high-manganese iron ore (HM ore), assaying
The single High-Maganese Iron Ore (HA) ore pellets were reduced by optimizing theJapan)
Summary
In 2017, 87.47% of 1229 million tons of iron ore consumed by the Chinese iron steel industry were imported [1]. High-aluminum iron ore is a typical refractory iron resource, which is difficult to upgrade by physical processes due to the superfine size and close dissemination of iron minerals with gangue minerals [4]. Many separating approaches have been published for high-aluminum iron resources, which can be classified as: (1) physical processes like gravity concentration and magnetic separation [6,7] and flotation [8], (2) pyrometallurgical processes containing solid-state reduction [4,9,10,11,12], and smelting [12,13,14,15]. Iron and aluminum cannot be Metals 2019, 9, 15; doi:10.3390/met9010015 www.mdpi.com/journal/metals
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