Fundamental Studies Related to Gaseous Reduction of Iron Oxide

Abstract: The demands for increasing the efficiency and lowering the environmental effects in iron and steelmaking industries have given rise to interests in application of direct reduction (DR) processes for production of iron by different gases. These advancements require comprehensive models for better control of the process conditions and the product properties. In the present thesis fundamental aspects in reduction of iron oxide were investigated.The experimental studies on reduction of iron oxide pellets were performed under well-controlled conditions in a setup designed for thermogravimetric investigations. The results indicated that the reaction rates by the applied procedure are higher compared to the procedure similar to conventional thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). This difference was caused by the time required for replacing the inert gas by the reaction gases. Reduction by H2-CO mixtures was accompanied by deposition of carbon and formation of cementite. The variations of cementite contents in the industrial iron ore pellets reduced isothermally for different durations, showed that cementite formation starts from the initial stages of reduction. The experimental conditions such as reaction temperature, carbon activity in the reaction gas and reaction time have a large impact on carbide content of the reduced samples.The kinetics of reduction of iron ore powder by H2 and CO gas mixtures with different compositions were studied using a commercial TGA setup. The results showed that the apparent rates of reaction vary linearly with the H2 and CO contents of the gas. Larger amount of H2 resulted in higher reaction rates. The data were employed in the developed reduction model for pellets. The model was based on the mechanism observed in the commercial iron ore pellets reduced by pure hydrogen. The microstructure of reacted pellets showed that reduction of the examined industrial samples is controlled by both chemical reaction and gaseous diffusion. The reduction model was developed by combining computations for the flow and mass transfer in the gas phase, diffusion of gases in the solid phase and chemical reaction at the reaction sites. The modelling and experimental results were in reasonably good agreement. The present model provides a good foundation for a dynamic multi-particle process model. The results highlighted the importance of considering the reduction mechanisms in different types of pellets prior to modelling.Experiments were undertaken to investigate the selective reduction of iron oxide in zinc ferrite. It was observed that gaseous reduction by hydrogen at temperatures up to 873 K is a potential method for reduction of iron oxide to metallic iron, while the zinc oxide remains in the product and losses of metallic zinc are negligible. Using this primary step in the hydrometallurgical processing of EAFD can overcome the difficulties for leaching of zinc ferrite.