Improving the Granulating and Sintering Performance by Pretreating Concentrates Using Extrusion Machine

In this paper, the pretreatment of concentrates by extrusion machine was present to improve the granulation of blends comprising some 30% iron ore concentrates and enhance the sintering performance. It is shown that by pretreatment of fine concentrates through extrusion machine, the content of +3mm fractions of granulation mixture and sinter mixture permeability are elevated by 10% and 35%, respectively. In the meantime, an increase in sinter productivity from 1.51 to 1.62t.m-2.h-1 is attainted in pot tests with similar sinter tumble index and at lower coke rate. The mechanism of the pretreatment of concentrates process to improve sintering performance of fine iron ore concentrates was demonstrated by mineralogy that better permeability help form more calcium ferrite and good microstructure of sinter, further proven by the better metallurgical performance of sinter.