Smelting characteristics of fluxed chromite sinter and its performance assessment in electric arc furnace to produce high carbon ferrochrome

More than 80% of the high grade chromite ores are fragile and tend to form fines during their handling. In order to utilise these chromite ore fine, in ferrochrome production, agglomeration is necessary. In the present study, the direct sintering of chromite ore fines in the presence of coke breeze has been carried out, which does neither require further grinding of ore fines ( − 10 mm) nor binder. It uses suitable fluxes and coke breeze as heat source to raise temperature up to 1600°C and produces a semifused mass (20% molten phases) with good strength. The developed sinter showed very good strength properties suitable for cold handling. Since it contains higher amount of fluxes than conventional pellet, the study on its smelting characteristics is necessary to assess its suitability in Fe–Cr production. In the present paper, smelting reduction characteristics and assessment of its performance with respect to the lump ore in a 50 kVA electric arc furnace have been studied in 10 kg scale. Different smelting parameters such as coke and flux requirement, energy consumption, etc. has been optimised through both thermodynamically and experimentally to get maximum extent of reduction, metallic yield and chromium recovery. Coke (21%), quartzite (7.52%) and bauxite (10%) addition with 45 kWh of heat input was found to be optimum to achieve 76% metallic yield and 91%, chromium recovery. In the comparative study in identical condition, the chromite sinter showed much better metallic yield (76%) and higher chromium content (54.6%) in the produced ferrochrome than the lump ore (70 and 51. 9% respectively) of the same grade.