Thermogravimetric studies on the reduction of hematite ore fines by a surrounding layer of coal or char fines: Part 2. Non-isothermal kinetic studies

A kinetic study on the non-isothermal reduction of a column of iron ore fines by a surrounding layer of char fines is the main theme of this paper. A study on isothermal reduction by coal/char fines was described in Part 1 of this communication.In the present work the degree of reaction at a given instant has been described as in Part 1, i.e., as the ratio of weight loss at that instant to the maximum possible weight loss. Reduction experiments have been carried out on three different sample sizes. Samples of ~1 g were used in a thermogravimetric set-up and continuous measurements of weight loss analysed in terms of the degree of reaction. Some fixed time reduction experiments have been carried out on large (~15 g) samples where the reduced sample was chemically analysed for the degree of reduction. In addition, a thermal analyser was used to study reduction in a thoroughly mixed ore-char system (sample size, ~30 mg).It is shown that while the reaction in a mixed system is characterized by uniform internal reduction, reduction in an unmixed system is characterized by diffusion of gases through a porous product layer, the reaction being controlled by gasification of carbon.