This study investigates the non-isothermal reduction of iron ore fines with two different carbon-bearing materials using the thermogravimetric technique. The iron ore fines/carbon composites were heated from room temperature up to 1100 °C with different heating rates (5, 10, 15, and 20 °C/min) under an argon atmosphere. The effect of heating rates and carbon sources on the reduction rate was intensively investigated. Reflected light and scanning electron microscopes were used to examine the morphological structure of the reduced composite. The results showed that the heating rates affected the reduction extent and the reduction rate. Under the same heating rate, the rates of reduction were relatively higher by using charcoal than coal. The reduction behavior of iron ore-coal was proceeded step wisely as follows: Fe2O3 → Fe3O4 → FeO → Fe. The reduction of iron ore/charcoal was proceeded from Fe2O3 to FeO and finally from FeO to metallic iron. The reduction kinetics was deduced by applying two different methods (model-free and model-fitting). The calculated activation energies of Fe2O3/charcoal and of Fe2O3/coal are 40.50–190.12 kJ/mole and 55.02–220.12 kJ/mole, respectively. These indicated that the reduction is controlled by gas diffusion at the initial stages and by nucleation reaction at the final stages.

An industrial furnace, such as a blast furnace, molten salt furnace and a basic oxygen furnace, is a popular reactor, where the distribution of liquid, flow pattern of the fluid and the velocity of the fluid determine the energy distribution and chemical reaction in the reactor. Taking a furnace as the research object, this paper studies the effects of different inlet velocities, liquid densities and viscosity on bubble and velocity distribution. A three-dimensional mathematical model of the furnace is set up by a numerical simulation, and the volume-of-fluid (VOF) method is used to study the behavior of bubbles. The accuracy of the simulation parameters selected in the simulation calculation is verified by comparing the simulation with the experimental results. The findings show that an excessive or too small an inlet velocity will lead to an uneven distribution of chlorine in the furnace, therefore, an inlet velocity of about 30 m/s is more appropriate. In addition, changing the liquid density has little effect on the bubble and velocity distribution while choosing the appropriate liquid viscosity can ensure the proper gas holdup and fluidity of chlorine in the furnace.

The main trough of a blast furnace (BF) is a main passage for hot metal and molten slag transportation from the taphole to the torpedo and the slag handling. Its appropriate working status and controlled erosion ensure a safe, stable, high-efficiency and low-cost continuous production of hot metal. In this work, the tapping process of a main trough of a BF in the east of China was numerically studied with the help of a CFD library written in C++, called OpenFOAM, based on the use of the Finite Volume Method (FVM). The results show that turbulence intensity downstream of the hot metal impact position becomes weaker and the turbulence area becomes larger in the main trough. During the tapping, thermal stress of wall refractory reaches the maximum value of 1.7 × 107 Pa at the 4 m position in the main trough. Furthermore, baffles in the main trough placed between 5.8 m and 6.2 m were found to control and reduce the impact of the turbulence on the refractory life. The metal flowrate upstream of the baffles can be decreased by 6%, and the flow velocity on the upper sidewall and bottom wall decrease by 9% and 7%, respectively, compared with the base model. By using baffles, the minimum fatigue life of the refractory in the main trough increases by 15 tappings compared with the base model, so the period between the maintenance stops can be prolonged by about 2 days.

Silicon nitride (Si3N4) and silicon powder (Si) are two kinds of harmful solid waste in industrial production. As an environmental and low-consumption method, the cold-bonding technique is a novel method to utilize the problem of powder resource cycling. In this experiment, mechanical and high-temperature properties of Si and Si3N4 briquettes were studied after cold bonding. The results are as follows: (1) The compressive strength of the Si and Si3N4 briquettes increased with the improvement of molding pressure. With the same binder (1 wt.%) and water (10 wt.%) addition, the compressive strength of the Si3N4 briquette arrived at 12,023.53 N under 40 Mpa molding pressure, which is much higher than that of the Si briquette (942.40 N). The Si particles are uneven and irregular, which leads to an intense arch bridge effect in the Si briquette and the compressive strength decrease. Compared with Si powder, the particle size and shape of Si3N4 is small, uniform, and regular. The influence of the arch bridge effect is smaller than that in the Si briquette. (2) After being treated at 1473 K for 1 h, the compressive strength of the Si briquette increased to 5049.83 N, and the compressive strength of the Si3N4 briquette had a slight change. The surface of the briquettes was contacted with oxygen and reacted to form an outer shell which mainly contains SiO2 in the high-temperature treatment. FT-IR results have shown there were no extra impurities in cold-bonded briquettes when using the organic binder. (3) The microstructure of the cross section of the Si and Si3N4 briquettes after high-temperature treatment presented that oxygen entered the briquette through the pores and continued to react with the Si and Si3N4. The outer shell of the Si briquette grew and thickened continuously with the oxygen spreading in the Si briquette. However, because of the smaller particle size and regular shape, little oxygen diffused in the Si3N4 briquette. The outer shell of the Si3N4 briquette is fairly thin, so the compressive strength did not change too much.

The isothermal reduction of iron oxide pellet fines–carbon composites was investigated at temperatures of 900–1100 °C. The reduction reactions were monitored using the thermogravimetric (TG) technique. Alternatively, a Quadruple Mass Spectrometer (QMS) analyzed the CO and CO2 gases evolved from the reduction reactions. The effect of temperature, carbon source, and reaction time on the rate of reduction was extensively studied. The phase composition and the morphological structure of the reduced composites were identified by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The results showed that the reduction rate was affected by the temperature and source of carbon. For all composite compacts, the reduction rate, as well as the conversion degree (α) increased with increasing temperature. Under the same temperature, the conversion degree and the reduction rate of composites were greater according to using the following carbon sources order: Activated charcoal > charcoal > coal. The reduction of the different composites was shown to occur stepwise from hematite to metallic iron. The reduction, either by activated charcoal or charcoal, is characterized by two behaviors. During the initial stage, the chemical reaction model (1 − α)−2 controls the reduction process whereas the final stage is controlled by gas diffusion [1 − (1 − α)1/2]2. In the case of reduction with coal, the reduction mechanism is regulated by the Avrami–Erofeev model [−ln (1−α)2] at the initial stage. The rate-controlling mechanism is the 3-D diffusion model (Z-L-T), namely [(1−α)−1/3−1]2 at the latter stage. The results indicated that using biomass carbon sources is favorable to replace fossil-origin carbon-bearing materials for the reduction of iron oxide pellet fines.