The role of volatiles in the reduction of iron oxides.

摘要

With iron ore reduction processes using coal-ore pellets or mixtures, it is possible that volatiles from the coals can contribute to the overall reduction. By identifying the possible reducing species in the volatiles as H2/CO and simulating these constituents, the rates for H2 and CO were investigated in the temperature and reduction range of interest where hydrogen was the major reductant and studied in detail.;In the initial stages of the present study, the fundamentals of hydrogen reduction of fine powder were found to be a complex mechanism of chemical kinetics and mass transfer. Complete uniform reduction for porous and dense iron ores were not observed contrary to existing work regarding this subject. Morphological observations of iron ores reduced at low and high temperatures showed a topochemical receding interface to be dominating with an intermediate region developing for higher temperature samples indicating the importance of pore mass transfer at the later stages of reduction. Although the activation energy of 50∼56 kJ/mole for these powder samples were comparable to the literature values for solely chemical kinetics controlled reactions, the reaction rates were not proportional to sample weight and also did not exhibit complete uniform internal reduction. The calculated mass transfer rates were comparable to the observed rate which suggested that bulk mass transfer is important to the mixed-control. The reaction rate at the mixed control regime was found to be first order with respect to hydrogen partial pressure.;Results of reducing iron oxide powders in a mixture of He-40%H2 -5%CO and H2-1%H2S showed that H2S and CO which is involved with the volatiles does not affect the rate at the reduction range of interest indicating the role of volatiles is dominated by the hydrogen reduction.;The single composite pellet experiments at 900 and 1000°C showed significant fixed carbon reduction to occur above 1000°C. Depending upon the type of carbon reductant in the composite pellet, secondary reactions with carbon and H2O was possible. Sintering of the pellets did not occur until a significant amount of reduction was obtained and thus for volatile reduction it is likely that the effects of sintering was negligible.;To determine the possibility of volatile reduction, a layer of Fe 2O3 powders were spread over HV coals resulting in the reduction of the top layer by about 20% at 1000°C after 1000 seconds. The morphology of the reduced Fe2O3 layer indicated that the reduction is higher near the interface of Coal/Fe2O3.;The volatile reduction of a single layer of composite pellet was found to be negligible. However, the reduction of Fe2O3 pellets at the top layer by the volatiles from the bottom layers of a three-layer pellet geometry was observed to be about 15%. From the morphological observations and the computed rates of bulk mass transfer, volatile reduction seems to be controlled by a mixed-controlled mechanism of bulk mass transfer and the limited-mixed control.;Using the reduction information obtained from the single pellet experiments reduced in hydrogen, an empirical relationship was obtained to approximately predict the amount of volatile reduction up to 20%.