Simulation on the formation, dripping and penetration behavior of primary oxide melt in the pyrometallurgical process

The contents of gangue minerals, such as Al₂O₃, P₂O₅, crystalline water and so forth in the iron ore imported to Japan tend to increase year by year. Though the increments of such gangue contents are approximately 0.1-0.2 mass%, some problems for the blast furnace operation in ironmaking process have already been reported. In order to clarify the mechanism of harmful effect caused by the small increment of gangue minerals, mainly Al₂O₃, on the blast furnace operation, the dripping behavior of Fe_tO-CaO-SiO₂-Al₂O₃-MgO slag from the iron funnel, which simulated the micro-porosity in sinter ore, has been observed with the wide range of basicity, Al₂O₃, Fe_tO and MgO contents. The effect of MgO on the dripping behavior of slag has been summarized in this paper. It was found that the addition of 2mass% MgO resulted in large increase of hold-up on the most of the conditions. When Fe_tO content was less than 20mass% and the basicity was lower than 0.8, MgO lowered the hold-up even if the slag contained 10mass% Al₂O₃. Every slag hold-up showed the minimum at the basicity of less than unity on the conditions of constant Fe_tO and Al₂O₃ contents. This trend became remarkable when the slag contained 2 mass% MgO.