Effect of characteristics of fine iron ores on the granulation behavior of concentrate in sintering granulation process

Abstract

Concentrates have advantages of high ferrous grade, less harmful impurities and lower price. However, the small size and poor granulation behavior of concentrates could deteriorate the permeability of the sinter bed and reduce sinter productivity, thus making it difficult to use concentrates effectively. Therefore, in order to strengthen the granulation behavior of concentrates, granulation experiments were carried out and experiment samples made with one kind of concentrates and five kinds of fine iron ores were produced in this paper. Then, the effects of water absorbility and wettability of fine iron ores on granulation behavior of concentrates were investigated. Furthermore, optimized ore blending recipes were proposed to strengthen the granulation behavior of concentrates by sinter pot tests. Results show that the granulation behavior of concentrates was improved for the samples exhibiting high maximum capillary water and small contact angle in fine iron ores. Compared with the scheme of blending ores containing 15 mass% concentrate, the growth index of quasi-particles increased by 20.62% in the case of iron ore BR-2 replacing half of iron ore BR-1, the vertical sintering speed went up from 26.32 to 29.26 mm min−1, the productivity increased from 1.95 to 2.20 t m−2 h−1. The growth index of the quasi-particles increased by 30% when using iron ore AR-2 to replace half of iron ore AR-1. The vertical sintering speed and the productivity of sinter improved to 29.82 mm min−1 and 2.24 t m−2 h−1, respectively. The results help to improve the granulation behavior of concentrates by optimizing the blending ore recipes, based on the characteristics of fine iron ores, and thus use these concentrates more efficiently in the sintering process.