Associate Professor Tom Honeyands

Slags are a co-product produced by the steel manufacturing industry and have mainly been utilised for aggregates in concreting and road construction. The increased utilisation of slag can increase economic growth and sustainability for future generations by creating a closed-loop system, circular economy within the metallurgical industries. Slags can be used as a soil amendment, and slag characteristics may reduce leachate potential of heavy metals, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as well as contain essential nutrients required for agricultural use and environmental remediation. This review aims to examine various slag generation processes in steel plants, their physicochemical characteristics in relation to beneficial utilisation as a soil amendment, and environmental implications and risk assessment of their utilisation in agricultural soils. In relation to enhancing recycling of these resources, current and emerging techniques to separate iron and phosphorus slag compositions are also outlined in this review. Although there are no known immediate direct threats posed by slag on human health, the associated risks include potential heavy metal contamination, leachate contamination, and bioaccumulation of heavy metals in plants, thereby reaching the food chain. Further research in this area is required to assess the long-term effects of slag in agricultural soils on animal and human health.

Sinter quality is a key element for stable blast furnace operation. Sinter strength and reducibility depend considerably on the mineral composition and associated textural features. During sinter optical image analysis (OIA), it is important to distinguish different morphologies of the same mineral such as primary/secondary hematite, and types of silico-ferrite of calcium and aluminum (SFCA). Standard red, green and blue (RGB) thresholding cannot effectively segment such morphologies one from another. The Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organization¿s (CSIRO) OIA software Mineral4/Recognition4 incorporates a unique textural identification module allowing various textures/morphologies of the same mineral to be discriminated. Together with other capabilities of the software, this feature was used for the examination of iron ore sinters where the ability to segment different types of hematite (primary versus secondary), different morphological sub-types of SFCA (platy and prismatic), and other common sinter phases such as magnetite, larnite, glass and remnant aluminosilicates is crucial for quantifying sinter petrology. Three different sinter samples were examined. Visual comparison showed very high correlation between manual and automated phase identification. The OIA results also gave high correlations with manual point counting, X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis results. Sinter textural classification performed by Recognition4 showed a high potential for deep understanding of sinter properties and the changes of such properties under different sintering conditions.

Several sinter plants in China are still using significant proportions of local magnetite concentrate in the sinter blend based on supply proximity. However the overall trend is that concentrates are being replaced by more cost effective sinter fines. The fine size of concentrates results in additional challenges for sintering. In this study, granulation and packing experiments were conducted to investigate the influence of concentrate addition level on granule structure and green bed properties under a wide range of moisture and hydrated lime dosage levels. Provided sufficient water is added during granulation, the existence of micro-particles including concentrate and hydrated lime favours granule growth and increases the mass ratio of adhering layer to nuclei. However, at the same moisture and hydrated lime content, the introduction of more concentrate decreases the bed voidage remarkably since the thicker and weaker adhering layer deforms during dynamic packing. Compared to the 100% sinter fines base blend, introducing concentrate has a negative effect on bed permeability and therefore sinter productivity. For the 10% and 30% concentrate blends tested, increasing hydrated lime from 0 wt% to 4 wt% could improve the green bed permeability in JPU from 53.0 to 65.8 and 39.4 to 60.8 respectively. Based on the experimental results, a semi-empirical green bed voidage model was improved in two aspects. One is applying a one dimensional packing algorithm to get the ideal porosity of dry coarse particles utilising size distribution data rather than the simple log-normal deviation parameter. The other is to add a probability term considering the deformation of granules only happens to the adhering layer. Combined with the widely accepted population balance granulation model developed by Litster, the improved model can give more accurate predicted voidage values for modeling the sintering process and optimizing actual production from the properties of raw materials and moisture content.

An experimental and modelling program has been conducted by BHP Billiton to study the rate and mechanism of melting of hot briquetted iron (HBI) during steelmaking. Single briquettes melt quickly relative to scrap, due to vigorous stirring from CO evolution caused by internal reaction of C and residual iron oxides. The melting rate is determined by the bath carbon level, with briquette carbon only important in a low carbon bath (< 0.1 wt%). This information can be used to optimise the HBI continuous feeding rate for steelmaking, or the batch addition profile.

The conditions necessary for the optimal use of Hot Briquetted Iron (HBI) in scrap pre-heating systems have been determined by experiment on a laboratory and pilot scale. The development of a process model has allowed prediction of the pre-heat temperature that is achievable in shaft type systems, and the consequent electrical energy savings and productivity improvements possible for an electric arc furnace (EAF). The behaviour of HBI during pre-heating involves a complex series of chemical reactions, as shown in Figure 5. Single briquette experiments have demonstrated that gains in HBI metallisation can be realised during pre-heating. HBI was successfully heated to 1000°C in an atmosphere containing <5% oxygen in pilot scale studies (2 tonne batches). Metallisation gains of approximately 0.5 to 1% were measured for batches of FIOR/FINMET HBI, confirming the laboratory scale work. Models have been developed for an EAF and a generalised pre-heating system. The EAF model is a versatile heat and mass balance model for heating, melting and chemical reactions. Key operating parameters such as electrical energy, oxygen and flux consumption, off-gas temperature and composition canbe calculated. The off-gas conditions are used as an input to the pre-heater model, which calculates the gas and HBI temperature distributions and HBI metallisation along the pre-heat system. Model predictions for a shaft pre-heater suggest that a charge of scrap and HBI has a heat capture efficiency up to 25% higher than an all-scrap charge. Optimum conditions for pre-heating require the HBI to be in a layer near the bottom of the charge or uniformly dispersed with scrap throughout the charge. Continuous charging and discharge of the pre-heat shaft would improve the overall performance. The challenge that remains is to confirm the model predictions at full scale and to develop operating practices, such as the optimum layering strategy for a mixed charge.

Hot briquetting reduces the porosity and surfaces to volume ratio of direct reduced iron (DRI). The usual air oxidation of iron is slow at ambient temperatures and becomes prominent only at temperatures above 500 °C. Briquettes passivated in air have a much slower corrosion rate in air at room temperature than unpassivated hot briquetted iron (HBI). Briquettes exhibit surface cracking, suggesting oxidation is not limited to the surface of the briquettes, but occurs also within the interior.

At present we are witnessing large investments in the iron ore industry, fuelled by demand from Asia. At the same time, there is a changing landscape in pricing of iron ores, with the recent demise of the benchmark system and the evolution of market based index pricing systems. From a customer perspective, it is the behaviour of iron ores in downstream processing that gives them their value; their impact on the sintering or pelletising process and subsequently blast furnace ironmaking. It is therefore important to consider this value when developing projects, making mine planning/cut-off grade decisions, and in setting quality price differentials. This paper describes the use of the Marx value in use (VIU) model to quantify the downstream value of iron ores. The Marx model consists of heat and mass balance modules for sintering, pelletising and a rigorous two-stage heat and mass balance model of blast furnace ironmaking. Mass balance and cost models are applied for steelmaking, casting and rolling. The use of a heat and mass balance allows accurate comparison of the impact of raw material properties on blast furnace operation. The impact of minor elements, such as alumina, silica and phosphorus, and metallurgical properties on ironmaking is described, and examples given for the relative value of haematite, Marra Mamba, and channel iron deposit (CID) ores.

The experiments conducted and the techniques used to analyze the melting rate before discussing the implications on the briquette melting rate were described. The experimental results show that the cylinders of hot briquetted iron (HBI) melt much faster than steel cylinders, due to the higher C and FeO content of the briquettes. It was observed that the higher C content tended to increase the driving force for melting, could lead to grains of DRI detaching from the bulk of the briquette during melting, and led to greatly enhanced heat transfer due to formation of CO gas. The inverse heat transfer analysis had been completed and had shown that the bath carbon content was important in determining the overall melting time.