Reduction Roasting Followed by Pelletization Study of Concentrate Fines of a Low Grade Iron Ore

Abstract

Utilizing iron ore mining wastes like dump fines, slimes, and tailings, which contain significant iron values, is essential to meet future needs and environmental sustainability, requiring intensive research to develop a process that can identify the route for sustainable usage. Reduction roasting is a proven route for converting and recovering high-grade iron value from low-grade iron ore (LGIO) resources. However, the further step is pelletization, by which these concentrated fines can be utilized for iron and steel making. This experimental investigation summarized the utilization of (LGIO) fines containing goethite to obtain high-grade iron ore pellets where the waste fines were earlier undergone reduction roasting and magnetic separation. The LGIO fines assayed 53.19% TFe, collected from Barbil, Odisha region, a mining waste dumped at the mine site. The reduction roasting experiments were designed using Taguchi's L9 experiment design and performed in a lab-scale muffle furnace. After magnetic separation, the magnetite obtained from the roasted sample underwent a pelletization study. The optimum roasting temperature and time were found to be 900 degrees C and 30 min, resulting in maximum yield and recovery, 70.4% and 84.2%, respectively, from the roasting experiments. The pellet produced from optimum roasting temperature and time possessed 310.6 kg/pellet Cold Compressive Strength (CCS) and 31.8% porosity, having 63.13% TFe at 1220 degrees C induration temperature and 5 min retention time.