Blast Furnace Flue Dust as a Potential Carbon Additive in Hematite Ore Pellet

Coke or anthracite coal is traditionally used as the carbon source in the hematite ore pellet for providing
in-situ heat and enhancing diffusion bonding and slag bonding. Blast furnace flue dust (BFD) is a waste
material, which contains a significant quantity of carbon may be another possible option of carbon source.
However, the feasibility of using this material for the preparation of blast furnace quality pellet from
hematite ore needs to be studied. In the present study, the burning characteristics of BFD in pellet have
been studied and compared with that of coke fines. The characteristics of the pellets prepared with the
above two carbon sources have been compared to assess the feasibility of using BFD as a carbon source in
the hematite pellet. While 1% C level in BFD-added pellet shows the optimum result, 1.5% C level in cokeadded pellet shows that. All properties of pellets improve significantly by the addition of carbon in form of
either BFD or coke both in acidic and basic conditions. Induration temperature could be reduced by
50–75 K in both cases. However, better pellet properties in terms of cold crushing strength (277 kg/pellet)
and reducibility index (81%) have been observed in using BFD. This study optimizes the process
parameters to utilize the BFD as a carbon additive in hematite pellet both in acidic and basic condition
replacing coke fines and establishes that BFD is a potential carbon source to achieve better pellet
properties without any adverse effect.