Influence of charcoal replacing coke on microstructure and reduction properties of iron ore sinter

This study was carried out to determine the influence of using charcoal as a supplementary fuel on the microstructure and reduction properties of sinter. The primary fuel was coke breeze with 0, 20, 30 and 40% replacement of weight input with charcoal to produce sinter. Experimental results indicate that when the replacement percentage of charcoal to coke breeze increased from 0 to 40%, the porosity and FeO content of sinter also rose. These changes result in an enhancement from 79.8 to 84.3% for the reducibility index due to the increased reducing surface area. In addition, the reduction degradation of sinter also improves since degradation during crystalline transformation is restricted. Therefore, replacing coke breeze with charcoal is able to improve the reducing properties of sinter, which is beneficial to small and large blast furnace operation.