Improving Granulating and Sintering Performance by Pretreating Specularite Concentrates Through Mechanical Activation

Abstract

In this paper, the pretreatment of specularite concentrates through roller press was present to improve the granulation of blends comprising some 10–30% specularite concentrates and enhance the sintering performance. It was shown that the content of +3 mm fractions of granulation mixture is elevated by 10% and the sinter mixture permeability is elevated by 35%. In the meantime, a sinter tumble index increasing from 62.00 to 64.13% was attainted with similar sinter productivity and at lower fuel rate. The mechanism of the pretreating concentrates process to improve sintering performance was demonstrated from mineralogy analysis that better permeability and improved reactivity which help to form more calcium ferrite and good microstructure of sinter, further proven by the better metallurgical performance of sinter.