Studies on Composite Pre-reduced Pellets of Iron Ore Fines of Sandur area , Bellary district, Karnataka, India

The paper deals with the study of composite pre-reduced pellets prepared using mixture of iron ore fines and non coking coal with bentonite and cement as binders. The iron ore fines from sandur area analysing 66.80% Fe, 1.72% Si0„ 1.34% X41,03 and 0.043% P has been used for the purpose. Non-coking coati coke has been used as reductant.The iron ore fines and reductanrs of uniform size were mixed in desired proportions to prepare pre-reduced pellets by using laboratory techniques and the parameters were optimised. After pre-heating the pellets were indurated for three different intervals, i.e., 1250°C, 1300°C
and 1350°C non isothermally. The tests on pellets were conducted on degree of reduction, porosity, swelling index, compression strength and metallisation . From the experimental studies, the optimum degree of reduction rate of 63% was obtained at 1350°C of 50 minutes with
iron ore to coal ratio 1:2. At this stage, the pellets produced possessed good strength of 204 kgs/pellet with porosity 24.0%, swelling index 16.60% and metallisation 78.5%. The composite pellets produced can be subjected to reduction efficiently which gives man), advantages as
a blast furnace feed in the steel industry in addition to conservation of mineral resources and effective util-isation of iron ore fines in abating the environmental problems.