Development of Synthetic Slag with Marble Waste and Calcium Aluminate Agents for Cast Iron Desulfurization

Abstract

The aim of this work was to study the use of slags to desulfurize cast iron. It was proposed to use alumina instead of fluorspar. In addition, marble waste was used instead of lime. Simulations applying Thermo-Calc® software were carried out in order to obtain the theoretical phases using thermodynamic data. Then, a comparison between theoretical data and experimental tests were performed. Cast iron was melted in induction furnace at 1550ºC. Slags composed mainly for CaO and Al2O3 were used to desulfurize cast iron. The results showed that the desulphurization reaction was favored when the liquid phase was increased. Furthermore, it was found that cast iron desulfurization occurs by top slag mechanism. Furthermore, the desulfurization tests showed a decrease up to 90.10% in the sulfur content to the mixture containing conventional lime and 87.25% to the mixture RMF15. The slags obtained from marble waste contained MgO, which it interfered negatively in the desulfurization yield. In addition, increasing the CaO particle diameter improved the desulfurization process. The desulphurization process more favored to particle size of 500-1000 µm.

Keywords

• Desulfurization
• fluorspar
• marble waste
• cast iron