Abstract
Volatile matter, which occupies more than 20 mass% in non-coking coal, is not utilized when the coal is fed directly into the smelting furnace. Its presence may even cause adverse effects in the operation. Therefore, the fundamental study on pre-reduction of iron oxide was carried out in order to investigate the conditions for efficient use of volatile matter in an iron bath smelting reduction total process. The final fractional reduction, F, was calculated from the loss in weight of pellets after reduction. Presence of combined water in coal affected F and caused a decrease in F at higher temperatures. However, when the combined water was removed from coal, F increased. In each coal, when the combined water was removed from volatile matter, F increased linearly from about 0.08 to 0.20 at the reduction temperatures from 773K up to 1073 K, beyond which F increased more than the linear relation, such as F about 0.30 at 1173 K and 0.40 at 1273 K. This may be due to caused by the contribution of hydrocarbons in the reduction reaction at high temperatures.
