Determination of the Reaction Rate Controlling Resistance of Goethite Iron Ore Reduction Using CO/CO2 Gases from Wood Charcoal
In the present work, an attempt is made to use non-contact charcoal in the reduction of run-off mine goethite ore at heating temperatures above 570 °C. The reduction mechanism was adopted, following Levenspiel’s relations for the shrinking core model at different stages of reduction. The non-contact charcoal reduction approach is adopted to maximize the benefit of using CO/CO2 gases from charcoal for reduction without the need for beneficiation and concentration. The rate-controlling steps for the reduction kinetics of average particle sizes 5, 10, 15, and 20 mm at 570, 700, 800, 900, and 1000 °C were studied after heat treatment of the ore-wood charcoal at a total reduction time of 40 min using activated carbon reactor. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analyses were done to investigate the spectrometric phase change and metallic components of the ore sample after reduction, respectively. The average percentage of the metallic iron content (56.6, 60.8, and 61.7%) and degree of metallization (91.62, 75.96, and 93.6%) are achieved from the SEM/EDX analysis of the reduced ore sample at reduction temperatures of 570, 800, and 1000 °C, respectively. The results indicate the tendency for high carbon deposit at the wustite stage of the reduction process at the lowest of temperature 570oC and the residence time of at 10 min. This study demonstrates that diffusion through the ash layer is the controlling resistance of the overall reduction process.