Reduction experiment of iron scale by adding waste plastics

Abstract

The special features of waste plastics in China are huge in total amount, various in type and dispersive in deposition. Therefore, it is necessary to try some new ways that are fit to Chinese situation for disposing waste plastics as metallurgical raw materials more effectively and flexibly. Owing to its high ferrous content and less impurity, the iron scale became ideal raw material to produce pure iron powder. One of the methods to produce pure iron powder is Hoganas Method, by which, after one or multistage of reduction steps, the iron scale can be reduced pure iron powder. However, combining utilization of waste plastics and iron powder production, a series of reduction experiments were arranged and investigated, which is hoped to take use of both thermal and chemical energy contained in waste plastics as well as to improve the reducing condition of iron scale, and hence to develop a new metallurgical way of disposing waste plastics. The results show that under these experimental conditions, the thermal-decomposition of water plastics can conduce to an increase of porosity in the reduction systems. Moreover, better thermodynamics and kinetics conditions for the reduction of scale can be reached. As a result, the reduction rate is increased.