Multi-index analysis of the melting process of laterite metallized pellet

Abstract

Herein, a multi-index analysis of the nickel content of an alloy, output rate of the alloy, nickel recovery rate, and iron recovery rate during the melting of laterite metallized pellets was performed. The thermodynamic reduction behavior of oxides such as NiO, FeO, Fe3O4, and Cr2O3 was studied using the FactSage software, which revealed that SiO2 is not conducive to the reduction of iron oxides, whereas the addition of basic oxides such as CaO and MgO is beneficial for the reduction of iron oxides. On the basis of a comprehensive analysis to achieve greater nickel recovery and lower iron recovery rates, the optimum experimental parameters in the orthogonal experiment were A3B1C3 (t = 30 min, C/O = 0.4, R = 1.2); the indicators wNi, φalloy, ηNi, and ηFe had values of 15.0wt%, 12.1%, 44.9%, and 96.4%, respectively. In single-factor experiments, increasing basicity (R) substantially improved the separation effect in the low-basicity range 0.5 ≤ R ≤ 0.8 but not in the high-basicity range 0.8 ≤ R ≤ 1.2. Similar results were obtained for the effect of the C/O ratio. Moreover, the recovery rate of nickel increased with increasing recovery rate of iron.