Exothermic iron compounds for producing iron oxide pellets

Abstract

There is provided a method of producing iron oxide pellets having a target internal energy measured as a target heat of magnetite equivalent (HME). An iron oxide is reduced into an exothermic iron compound having a lower oxidation number. The exothermic iron compound is magnetite, wustite, and/or metallic iron and is mixed with iron ore, a binder and optionally a carbon material selected from coke breeze, anthracite and biomass. The iron ore comprises magnetite and/or hematite and/or goethite. The mixture contains at least 1 wt. % of the exothermic iron compound and from 0 to 0.8 wt. % of total carbon. The mixture contains a sufficient amount of magnetite, wustite, and/or metallic iron to maintain the target HME calculated as follows: target ⁢ HME = CV ⁢ of ⁢ CM CV ⁢ of ⁢ mag ⁢ ( wt . % ⁢ of ⁢ CM ) + wt . % ⁢ of ⁢ mag + CV ⁢ of ⁢ wus CV ⁢ of ⁢ mag ⁢ ( wt . % ⁢ of ⁢ wus ) + CV ⁢ of ⁢ Fe metal CV ⁢ of ⁢ mag ⁢ ( wt . % ⁢ of ⁢ Fe metal ) where CM stands for carbon material, CV stands for calorific value, wus is wustite, mag is magnetite, and Femetal is metallic iron; The iron pellets are formed from the mixture, dried and subjected to an induration process.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.