Mechanism and kinetics of the carbothermic reduction of titanium-bearing blast furnace slag

Abstract

The carbothermic reduction experiments were carried out for titanium-bearing blast furnace slag from Panzhihua Iron and Steel Company in argon atmosphere at high temperatures. The effects of reduction temperature, isothermal treatment time and carbon particle sizes on the formation of TiC were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscope (SEM). The SEM pictures show that the size of C has little influence on the particle size of TiC. The experimental results show that the shrinking core model is applicable and the carbothermic reduction is controlled by the chemical reaction. The apparent activation energy of reaction could be obtained to be 69.16 kJ/mol.