Beneficiation and extraction of Malaysian's iron ores

Abstract

This present study is to study the influence of the different sizes of iron ore from Bukit Besi, Terengganu and Kulim, Kedah on the reduction process with coke from Perwaja Steel, Kemaman, Terengganu as a reducing agent. Iron and steelmaking is one of the largest energy intensive industries with a fast growth rate of certain sectors. The technology of steelmaking and iron production is very vital because of the high demand for metallic material use in all application. The oxygen and impurities must be removed to get the iron from iron ore. So, the reducing agent is needed where coke is one of the most vital raw materials in the blast furnace process. Three different sizes of iron ores were crushed, ground and sieved to obtain particle size between the size ranges of 300 μm, 150 μm and 63 μm. The samples undergo the reduction process in a horizontal tube furnace at temperature of 950°C for 60 minutes for reduction behavior. The samples were characterized according to the elemental analysis such as X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen (CHON) analysis while the morphological observation by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM)/ Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX) and Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) method in order to understand the reduction behavior, to determine the best parameter to improve the reductions performance and to measure the specific surface area of the particles. By analyzed the results, coke was needed as a reducing agent to reduce the metallic iron from the iron ore and the best size of iron ore with coke. Based on the SEM/EDX, XRD and XRF analysis, by reducing the size of the iron ore, reduction © This item is protected by original copyright xvii performance in the blast furnace were improved. In conclusion, when we compared the two sizes of the samples of iron ore from Bukit Besi and Kulim at 63 by using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) and Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen and Nitrogen (CHON) analysis while the morphological observation by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM)/ Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX) and Brunauer-Emmet-Teller (BET) method, it is proven and shows that Bukit Besi has a higher amount of pure iron recovery as compared to Kulim.