Investigating the Oxidation Phenomena of Magnetite Pellet

Induration of magnetite pellet is a complex physico-chemical process involving oxidation, sintering and the heat transfer phenomena. Often, these phenomena happen simultaneously and influence each other in the induration furnace. It could be because of the highly exothermic nature of oxidation phenomena that can result in significant temperature gradients inside the pellet and sintering might begin much earlier that it is ideally supposed to. This could results in the formation of pellets with heterogeneous phases and crystallographic properties such as duplex structure, and results in the inferior quality of pellets across the bed. In order to predict the optimum thermal profile to achieve homogenous good quality pellets on consistent basis, it is necessary develop a model based on the kinetics of each of these phenomena. This will help to identify and optimize the responsible process parameters during induration accordingly. Subsequent to the investigation of sintering kinetics of magnetite pellets, the current study focuses on the oxidation phenomena. The reaction mechanisms for oxidation of magnetite pellets is dependent primarily on factors such as temperature and oxygen content in the oxidizing gas, etc. Isothermal oxidation of magnetite at pellet scale has been studied experimentally using Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TGA) by inserting the single pellet directly into the isothermal zone of the furnace. It has been found that the oxidation phenomena in the magnetite pellets is a multi-stage phenomena dominated by distinct mechanisms depending on varying extent of oxidation with respect to temperature and oxygen content