Factors Affecting Ballability of Mixture Iron Ore Concentrates and Iron Oxide Bearing Wastes in Metallurgical Processing

Abstract

Iron oxide bearing wastes (IROBEWAS) are produced at every segment of processing stage of sinter, molten iron and steel production. They are hard to handle and in many cases are stockpiled only to be a source of environmental pollution but can be balled into pellets. Pellet of good ballability values are transportable and recyclable as they can withstand stress they will encounter without disintegrating back to dust. But ballability is affected by some factors like the grain sizes of the materials, the moisture and binder contents of the ball mix, wettability of the balled materials and the processing perimeters of the granulator. The objective of this research work is to investigate the factors affecting ballability of mixture of iron ore concentrates and iron oxide bearing wastes (IROBEWAS) in metallurgical processing. The parameters under consideration were grain size of materials, the moisture contents, the speed of balling disc, IROBEWAS and Bentonite (Binder) contents of the balled mix. This was carried out by balling different volume fractions of mix containing iron oxide concentrate and IROBEWAS using a balling disc and testing the resulting balls for green compressive strength using universal testing machine. It was found that the ballability of the mixture of iron ore concentrate and IROBEWAS increases as grain sizes of the materials reduce but increases as the moisture contents and IROBEWAS content increase up to an optimum value of moisture content in the mix before it starts to reduce. The ballability also increases as the speed of the granulator (Balling disc) increases within the limit of this work. It was also observed that there was an increase in ballability with slight increase in bentonite content in the mix.

Keywords

• waste
• ballabilty
• iron ore concentrate
• iron bearing waste