GREEN PROCESS FOR THE PREPARATION OF PURE IRON

摘要

The present invention relates to an eco-friendly and single step process for the preparation of high purity iron by using hydrogen plasma in a suitable smelting reactor furnace. Reduction of iron oxide in excess of 99% can be achieved by reducing the iron ore in hydrogen plasma smelting system. The product quality is greatly improved as there is no instance of coke inclusion which otherwise would have carried carbon, sulphur, phosphorous, silica, etc. with it. In addition, this greatly diminishes carbon dioxide emission thereby making the process highly eco-friendly in nature. Apart from these, the process produces water as the only by-product. The process takes care of the green house effect with the non-involvement of gases like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide during the operation. Thus, the present process is developed to produce high pure iron in a hydrogen plasma reactor without using carbon as reductant which thereby reduces the carbon dioxide emission drastically.

主权项

1. A green process for the preparation of pure iron from iron oxide without using carbon, wherein the said process comprises the steps of:
a) mixing iron ore fines with 1 to 15% non-carbon additives to obtain iron oxide granules of size 0.2 to 6 mm as a feed material; b) loading iron oxide granules as obtained in step a) in water cooled copper crucible with options for feeding iron oxide granules with varying feed rate during the course of operation through a feeder; c) introducing Ar gas at flow rate in the range of 5-50 liters per minute (lpm) into the reaction chamber for a period in the range of 1 to 2 minutes followed by establishing an electric arc to obtain molten iron ore; and d) passing H2 gas at flow rate in the range of 2-40 lpm to the reaction chamber with magnetic stirring for a period in the range of 30-180 min to obtain slag and pure iron.