A STUDY ON THE FABRICATION OF IRON POWDER FROM FORGING SCALE USING HYDROGEN

摘要

This study was conducted to investigate the effect of hydrogen content, temperature, reaction time for the reduction of forging scale which is mainly composed of hematite (Fe2O3). All reductive reactions were performed over the temperature range of 700 to 1200 degrees C as well as 0.1 to 1 atm of hydrogen partial pressures. The results showed that the mechanism for the reduction of iron oxides using hydrogen gas was not a simple process, but proceeded in multiple reduction stages thermodynamically. The iron oxide was almost completely reduced to metallic iron powder with 91 wt.% of iron content in the forging scale at 0.1 atm of hydrogen partial pressure. The content of iron was however found to be increased with increasing hydrogen partial pressure from 0.1 to 1 atm with regardless of temperatures. The metallic iron powder was obtained with the mean size of 100 mu m and more porous structure was observed.