NOx emission profile determined by in-situ gas monitoring of iron ore sintering during packed-bed coke combustion

[Display omitted] •Gas and temperature analyses in sinter bed clarified combustion profile in detail.•NO emission and conversion rate were higher at the bottom of the combustion layer.•SO2 was emitted in the upstream burning layer and absorbed by the downstream layer.•Reducing NOx emission at the bottom of the combustion layer will be effective. Coke combustion inside the iron ore sintering process is a major source of NOx in the steel industry. All the associated combustion reactions can be categorized as packed-bed combustion. Therefore, detailed analysis of NOx emission inside the packed bed is necessary to suppress the emission of environmentally hazardous NOx. In this study, the time-course profile of the conversion rate of fuel-N in coke to NOx was determined during packed-bed combustion. The conversion rate was calculated at each reaction time by analyzing the results of in-situ gas measurement inside the iron ore sintering reactor during the combustion. Both the emission of NO and the conversion rate were found to be higher in the lower-temperature region in the combustion layer, corresponding to the beginning of coke combustion. This result proved that it is necessary to reduce NOx emission at the beginning of coke combustion inside the iron ore sintering process to reduce NOx emission from the sintering process.