If reaction products of steelmaking reaction are gaseous, some problems on produced slags are reduced. Present work examined fundamentally, if desiliconization by vaporization method was possible or not.
About 30g of molten iron saturated by carbon and containing various amounts of silicon was melted in a graphite crucible. When Cl
2 is blown into the molten iron, chlorination of silicon and ferrous metal occurred simultaneously. Since chlorination rate of ferrous metal is faster than that of silicon, silicon is enriched in the molten iron apparently. When FeCl
2 powder filled in a pocket of plunger made of graphite is dipped into the molten iron, only silicon is chlorized.
The chlorination rate of silicon by FeCl
2 can be expressed as a first order reaction equation with respect to silicon content in iron. The apparent rate constants of the reaction are affected by the plunger pocket size and mass of molten iron. However, the rate constants are not affected by temperature.
The relationship among initial silicon content of the molten iron, [%Si]
O, that at time
t [%Si]
t, mass of FeCl
2 in the plunger pocket,
Wp, sum of mass of FeCl
2 supplied to the molten iron,
Wf, and mass of the molten iron,
Ws, can be expressed as follows :
-In [%Si]
t/[%Si]
O= exp( -
Wp-1.05)/
Ws0.81 WfThe major reaction product was observed as SiCl
4.
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